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From the Hudson to the Ohio. 

A Region of Historic, Romantic and Scenic 
Interest, and other Sketclies, 

BY 

WILLIAM BENDER WILSON, 

AUTHOR OF^,.^ ..,. >"».., 3, >.., -,-., 

'History of the Pennsylvania Railroad," "Acts and Actors 
in the Civil War," " Emmannel Church," 
Etc. Etc. 



KENSINGTON PRESS 
1902. 



THF LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

iUL. 22 1902 

OnPVBIQHT ENTRY 

idl.ASS ^XX& No. 
COPY B. 



5 



COrVRIGHT, JANUARY 9, I9O2, 
<cc ,c, BY 

AV't-LTAM BEXDER AVILSOX. 



»S^ 



CONTKNTS 



Dedication 

From the Hudson to the Ohio 

Lights and Shadows 

An Evening- in Jnl.v ; A Catastrophe; Flood and Charity; Village Life; 
A Quaint Old Town ; The Great White Cit3' ; The Tale of Two Cemeteries. 

The Telegraph in Peace and War 

Warfare 

Black Dick 

George Washington 

The Battle of Baltimore and the Star Spangled Banner 

The Old and the New Way 

An Early Snow Plow 

The Transportation Panel in Broad Street Station 

Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 

The Secretary of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company . , . . . . 

Division Freight Agents 

A Faithful Surgeon 

Freight Agencies 

In Memoriam : Edward Miller, Joseph D. Potts, John Clark Sims, 

Edward Jef^'eries 

Peter Boughner's recollections 



DEDICATION. 



To fllexarider J, Cassatt, ericoiirager and 
patrori of literature arid tl^e arts ; tY\e prorr\oter of 
civics ; a rr\ari of affairs, wl^ose strerigtl^ is accorq- 
pariied by tfjat rqodesty -wtiicin, is always iridica- 
tive of true greatriess ; arid orie wh[Ose actioris 
t\ave UriWaveririgly l^ad for ti^eir object tl)e best 
results, tl^is little worK is dedicated by 

THE fiUTHOR 



Holn\esburg, 

Priiladelpl^ia, 

January 1, 1902. 




A. J. CASSATT. 



iTom the Hudson to the Ohio: 
A Region of Historic, Romantic and Scenic Interest 



BY 

William Bexder Wilson. 



Leaving" the majestic Hudson, whose waters are ever perturbed 
by the unceasing swells of commerce, the traveller moving over the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, crosses the Passaic, the Rahway and the 
Raritan, and passes the historic fields of Monmouth, Princeton and 
Trenton, so dear to the patriotic heart. Diverging at Trenton, the 
wild and romantic scenery of the Upper Delaware is a source of 
unending enjoyment and entrancement. Returning, and passing 
through IMorrisville, once the abode of ^loreau and of ?iIorris, and 
proceeding westward, the m.ore placid stream is everchanging in 
its scenic eiTects, to which the waters and vallies of the Neshamiiiy. 
the Poquessing and the Pennypack contribute. Historic German- 
town, with its wealth of patriotic memories and relics, is close at 
hand. Crossing the Schuylkill's tranquil waters, a glimpse is had 
of Fairmount Park, wondrous in its numerous vistas and unsur- 
i:»assed in natural beauty. A few minutes away is the renowned 
Wissahickon,, whose towering rocks, pools and water- falls George 
Lippard wove into legendary lore. Now in the center of the citv of 
P>rotherly Love, founded b}- Penn, graced by Washington and wdiere- 
in the Declaration of Independence was made, the Constitution of the 
United vStates was framed and Franklin lived. Repassing the 
vSchuylkill and by the many charming suburban towns and villas 
which repose in contentment amid rural surroundings, like choice 
and sparkling gems in rich and rare settings, through Paoli. whose 
neighborhood is conspicuous by its revolutionary memories — \'allev 
Forge and the "Massacre" being ever fresh — the beautiful and 



FROM THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

fertile Chester A'alley, shut in l:)y densely wooded hills, looms into 
view. The rolling land, adorned with pure water flowing from 
its hillsides ; the evidences of thrift, prosperity and contented wealth 
on everv hand ; the neat farmhouses, large barns ; its deep green 
grass ; its herds of cattle, are always attractive. Rushing over the 
Brandy wine, the equally beautiful and productive Pequa A'alley is 
soon entered and then up to and through the Gap of the Mine Hill, 
where Robin Hood tales are still l)clieved in, only to emerge into 
and glide through that treasury of wealth, the A'alley of the Con- 
estoga. Fringing this valley, the crowns of the ^^'elsh ^Mountains, 
standing out against a spotless sky, almost southern in its warmth, 
overlook the finest picture of agricultural prosperity and repose to 
be found on this continent. Looking backward from Lancaster to 
the Schuylkill, there is seen a region of beauty and wealth within 
whose boundaries General Anthony Wayne, the patriot, Benjamin 
West, the celebrated artist, and his pupil, the afterwards renowned 
inventor, Robert Fulton, and Lindle}' ^Lirray, the grammarian, 
were born. Li the cemeteries of Lancaster city repose the remains 
of James Buchanan, the fifteenth President of the L'nited States ; 
^lajor General John F. Reynolds, the hero and victim of Gettys- 
burg; Thaddeus Stevens, the Commoner; and James ^liftiin, a 
patriot of the Revolution and subsequently Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Thence on and over the rough and wooded hills of Conewago, 
with acres of hugh trap-rock boulders left upon their surface as 
the glacial period passed away, and down to the shore of the Sus- 
quehanna, across whose crystal waters the South ^Mountains looming 
up seem to embrace the horizon. Skirting the left bank of the 
river, the graceful curves of the stream, the rapidity of the flow, 
the rifflings of miniature falls, the many verdure-covered islands 
in repose upon its bosom, poetic thought receives an inspiration. 
Passing Harrisljurg, the beautiful capital of the great Common- 
wealth, at whose southern gate the red tide of civil war reached its 
height, the fi.rst mountain of the Blue Ridge stands out in bold relief. 
Shunlx'ring at the base of that rugged and lofty hill, which dips 
into the cooling waters of the Susquehanna, and amidst scenerv 
of unsurpassed grandem- — rock and mountain and glen and mir- 
rored waters — lies the Aillage of Rockville. There is no spot from 
whence more beautiful and grander sunsets can Ik^ witnessed, — 
the wondrous varietv of i^rav tints, lilendino- with other rich and 



FROM THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

delicate colors, contribute such artistic etYects that the eye never 
palls gazing- upon them. A little way clown the river in former 
days stood ]vlrs. Halbach's famous inn, with its catfish and waffles 
served bv the hands of blithe Katie : and farther on, conspicuous 
in a Calvinistic rigidity, the old white painted church, with its 
green \'enitian shutters, gave emphasis to Coxtown life. Close by 
was Carson's cranberry bog. from whose weird surroundings and 
mvsterious depths the average boy shied ofit. The old canal lock 
at Rockville, with its adjacent storehouse of boat supplies and group 
of buildings, was in those days the center of gossip, and always had 
a large number of visitors bent on obtaining news from the world 
outside whenever the packet came in. The boy in the crowd look- 
ing upon the packet, and out from it into the great world beyond, 
unconsciously absorbed ideas of transportation which bore good fruit 
in after years. Crossing at Rockville to the right bank of the 
river, the confluence of the Juniata soon comes into view and the 
Juniata A'alley, with its wealth of agriculture, hills, pellucid waters, 
historv, poetry, and romance, opens its treasures. From the time 
the traveller crosses th.e Susquehanna until passing through the 
deep gorge of the Juniata at Tyrone and traversing the Tuckahoe 
A'allev comes to the foot of the Alleghenies, he traverses a region 
of melody and scenic grandetir. West of ]Mifflin. the weird and 
gloomy passage of the "Xarrows" between the Black Log and Shade 
Mountains, with its full, deep solemnity, is changed to a scene of 
joyous beauty, as, emerging from the shadow, the light of the 
Kishacoquillas \'alley is seen. That is the valley in which Lewis- 
town is located, and with which Logan the celebrated Indian chief, 
is identified. After Huntingdon county is reached, the scenery 
breaks into rugged grandeur, which the bolder mountain ranges 
produce. The whole region is a rare one for the lovers of the 
beautiful and grand to visit and to transfer the soul-inspiring 
scenerv from Nature's pallette to that of the artist : — 

"Here mountain on mountain exultingly throws 
Through storm mist and snow its black crags to the skies; 
In their shadows the sweets of the vallies repose. 
While streams gay with verdure and sunshine, steal by." 

At Mottnt Union is Jack's Xarrows, a A\'ild and rugged gorge 
formed by the river forcing its wa}- through Jack's ^Mountain. The 
sides of the mountain, in many places showing no vegetation, 



FRO^I THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

expose masses of rock, which seem as if they were about to roll 
down into the ri^•er below. Fuller, in singing of this mountain 
and gorge, tells : — 

'"When vernal skies dispel the chill, 
That wintry winds Jiave I)rought, 
And heal the wounds with piteous hands 
Unfeeling frosts hath wrought, 
Then woodland beauty hastens forth 
Thy bleak defiles to hide. 
And leaflets spring from tree to shrub. 
And flow'rs on CA'ery side. 

"If summer suns, with melting ra}^ 
]\lake hills and valleys glow. 
And fling their beaming radiance down, 
Alike on friend, and foe. 
With gentle breezes thou art fanned 
With balmy zephyrs blest. 
Refreshing to the languid ones, 
And to the weary, rest. 

''So. too, when Autumn's mellow days 
Begin their busy hours. 
And hang their gorgeous drapings wide 
O'er all thy sylvan bowers, 
Then many a low and ladened bough 
And man}' a stately tree 
With gen'rous yield their fruits bestow, 
A bounty rich and free. 

"But when the storms of Winter come. 
Thy solitudes to claim. 
Old Boreas rides in wrathful mood, 
O'er all tlw bleak domain ; 
He fiercel}' binds thy far-famed stream. 
He madly seals it fast ; 
And sweeps athwart thy dark ravines 
In many a roaring Idast." 

Ascending the stream westward from the gorge, the water 
flows as gently as if it were gliding through the castle of the fairies. 
At Huntingdon an opportunity offers of observing some of the best 
of mountain eiifects. Ascending the hill leading to the city of the 
dead in Huntingdon, the visitor will be greeted at every footstep 
hv some new. attracti\-e scene, t'rodii^al Xattu^e lavish of the sur- 



PROM THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

prises she loves to take from her inexh.anstible storeliouses, and with 
charming- coquetry bestow upon her lovers, at each advance places, 
almost panoramicallv. for admiration some new scene of beauty. 
Here a bit of color, there an exquisite piece of water, and over 
vonder a precipitous cliff. In whichever direction the eye rests, 
loftv trees and quiet vallies placed so as to produce harmony of 
effect contriljute to the formation of incomparable pictures. Foot- 
hill rises above foot-hill, and, clad in the various shades of green, 
form the advance guard of the mountains wdiich on the eastern slope 
constitute the declining spur of the AUeghanies. Just east of Ceme- 
tery Hill, Stone Creek Mountain rises to a height of dignity from 
its base — a base wdiich abruptly springs out of the sparkling waters 
of the creek as in merriment they hasten to join the Juniata's tlow 
in its serene joiu-ney to the ocean. There to the northwest and 
southv/est looms up Tussey's ^Mountain, grand in its ever-chang- 
ing shadows. Again, in the northwest, is ^^'arrior Ridge, which 
loses itself in the deep blue of the mountains beyond. The Juniata,^ 
here and there, making wide gaps in the hills, and irrigating fertile 
fields rich in their productiveness, winds its way in a willowy course 
through the valley. Below, in the deep basin, reposes Huntingdon, 
Its spires, gilded into life by the morning" sun, speak of a quiet 
confidence as they silently emphasize the peacefulness of surround- 
ings. At irregular distances dark smoke from factory stacks blends 
as it rises with the blue of the zenith and seems like sweet vapor 
of burning incense ascending heavenward in recognition of the 
prosperity of the neighborhood. Standing at the cemetery gate in 
the midst of the solemnity and beauty of Xature and looking upon 
the mountains, one feels that these are not the mountains of men 
for their habitations and uses, but are the mountains of God, for 
the revelation of his majest}', love and power. 

Reaching the Little Juniata, and following it through a gorge 
of Tussey's [Mountain. Tyrone, with its disappearing and reappear- 
ing stream, is passed. Thence through the Tuckahoe \'alley, lying 
between the main range of the AUeghanies and the Brush ^Mountain, 
to Altoona, and climbing the mountain sides, magnificent scenes of 
landscape beauty enrapture the eye. At Kittanning Point the moun- 
tain scenerv is incomparable. Dr. R. ]\I. S. Jackson, the "Man of 
the ]\fountain," thus describes it: — 

"The poet and painter are presented with a boundless field, as 
the element of beautv seems alone to have been recognized and 



FRO^r THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

consulted in its creation. Immediately l^elow reposes the range of 
beautiful valleys at the southeast base of the Alleghenies, their 
northwest margins sloping up to the mountain in a range of round, 
soft, billowy hills, as it were the gentle heavings of a summer sea, 
breaking against the shore upon whose rocky heights the beholder 
stands. It is also beautiful to perceive, that in the space between 
the lines v/hich represent the distance between the mountain summits, 
the tint, from the increased distance, becomes deeper and deeper, 
until lost in the clear blue of ether. As the eye follows the azure 
steps of this kingly portal to the skies, line rising above line, it can 
scarcely be realized that within each of these tints of deeper blue, 
there reposes a range of the richest and loveliest limestone valleys 
of Pennsylvania. Often, with bars of clouds reposing on the hori- 
zon, it is impossible for the eye to distinguish the distant lines or 
to fix where the earth ceases and the heavens commence." Through 
the mountain and emerging at Gallitzin, named in honor of the 
Russian nobleman who settled at Loretto, and in the capacity of a 
Roman Catholic priest scattered his benevolence far and wide, a 
height of nearly 2,200 feet above the level of the sea is attained. 

"Now I gain the mountain's l)row, 
What a landscape lies ])elow ! 
No clouds, no vapors, intervene, 
But the gay, the open scene 
Does the face of Nature show, 
In all the hues of Heaven's bow ! 
And, swelling to embrace the light. 
Spreads around beneath the sight." 

Charles Dickens, in describing his trip over the AUeghanies 
by way of the old Portage Railroad in 1842, said : "It was very 
pretty travelling thus at a rapid rate along the heights of the moun- 
tain in a keen wind, to look down into the valley, full of light and 
softness ; catching glimpses through the tree tops of scattered cabins ; 
children running to the doors, dogs bursting out to bark whom we 
could see without hearing; and terrified pigs scampering home- 
ward ; families sitting out in their rustic gardens ; cows gazing 
upward with stupid indifference ; men in their shirt-sleeves, looking 
on at their unfinished houses, planning out to-morrow's work ; and 
we riding high above them like a whirlwind. It was amusing, too, 
when we had dined and rattled down a steep pass, having no other 
moving power than llu- weight of the carriages themselves, to see 



FRO^I THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

the engine, released long after us, come Inizzing- down alone like a 
great insect, its back of green and gold so shining in the sun that 
if it had spread a pair of wings and soared away no one would 
have had occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. But it 
stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when we reached 
the canal, and before we left the wharf, went panting up the hill 
again with the passengers who had waited our arrival for the means 
of traversing the road by which w^e had come." Another writer, 
in describing his sensations in passing over the moimtain in an 
earlier day, said : "As the car rolls along on this giddy height, the 
thought trembles in your mind that it may slip over the head of 
the first descending plane, rush dow^n the fearful steep and be 
dashed into a thousand pieces at its foot." 

In the early morning as the train moves westward from Altoona. 
the sun, breaking through the mists, weaves hundreds of fantastic 
and beautiful shapes on the mountain slopes and gilds with its brush 
the distant peaks. The easy, graceful ascent, the triumph of en- 
gineering skill, is an unending source of pleasure and admiration to 
the traveller ; and no matter how^ often he repeats it, he always 
encounters something new in the scenery to delight him. And as he 
descends the mountain he sees a glory lavishly spent by Nature, and 
here and there the Conemaugh appearing as a mirrored surface, send- 
ing upward from below the beauties of the hillsides or the swiftness of 
the passing train. The contemplation of the romance of the Cone- 
maugh is always saddened as there wells up in memory its great 
tragedy ; when its swollen and angry waters laid desolate Johnstown 
and its environs, forming the prosperous iron city of the Alleghenies ; 
when the black pall of death enshrouded the valley, wdien its stalwart 
sons and beautiful daughters, its wise men and innocent children, its 
maids and its matrons, its rich and its poor, while enjoying the full- 
ness of health, were suddenly clasped in the cold embrace of death. 
There was a silver lining to the cloud, for when the stricken ones who 
survived the ordeal through wdiich they had passed mutely appealed in 
their helplessness to the common brotherhood of man for the helping 
hand to aid them in rising from their fallen condition, the vastness of 
the flood that produced the disaster found its counterpart in the vast- 
ness of sweet charity's tide, which, flowing from all portions of the 
habitable globe, bore aid and succor to the homeless, the heart- 
broken, the sick and the naked. 

From the conception of a railway from the seaboard to the 

•3 



FRO-AI THE HUDSON TO THE OHIO. 

Ohio, the Allegheny mountain was a formidable barrier ; the quick 
succession of motuitain rising" after mountain seemed insurmountable, 
but, by utilizing the resources of Xature, the genius of man reclaimed 
the mountain wildness, stibdued the wild and fierce obstacles in moun- 
tain fastnesses, overcame mountain heights, bridged valleys and 
streams, and supplanting the silence of solitude, made the glens and 
gullies and hill-tops resound with the hum of industr_\- and the notes 
of moving traffic. But civilization's progress has not dulled the 
beauties of the scenery of the Alleghanies. There may be mountain 
scenery of far grander aspect ; loftier hills with snow-capped peaks ; 
deeper gorges and gloomier cannons ; bnit none where skv, foliage 
and verdtu'e combine with hill and stream in so manv ettects to 
produce the \ery poetry of motuitain scenery ! 

Lea\ing Johnsto\vn, the scenes change, as the gliding is down, 
down, to the Ohio basin. Through the gaps of Laurel Hill, across 
the valley of the Ligonier, penetrating the gorges of Chestnut Hill, 
l)y rivulets and running streams. Avhose shimmering waters send 
springs of sweetness through those valleys, the wild magnificence 
of mountain sides receives its cttlmination in the Pack Sa^idle, a 
formidable bluff towering at a considerable height above the Cone- 
maugh flowing at its base. The superb beauty of this spot, once 
seen becomes indelibly impressed upon memory. Soon the deep, 
wild and romantic Conemaugh \'alle}' is left behind, and the rolling 
tableland of Westmoreland is passed over. The waters of the Loval- 
hanna come into play to add their effects to the scenery. Greens- 
burg off'ers up for ])atriotic reverence the grave of the lionorable 
but unfortunate soldier. General Arthur St. Clair, and the Brush 
and Turtle creeks lead on to Braddock's Field, where there springs 
to memory the awful July day, more than a century ago, when savage 
fury accompanied by extraordinary scenes of barbarism laid low the 
choicest of the British military service and humbled the pride of the 
British nation. ( )n and on, along the Brush, the Turtle and the 
Alonongahela, through s]:)lendi(l agricultural and mineral lands, into 
the city of Pittsburg, unsurpassed in all the elements of substantial 
wealth, the very heart of American industrial life. 'Tis here the 
united currents of the AJlegheny ivom the northeast and the Monon- 
gahela from the south rush into the Ohio, and the blended waters, 
that were the origin and generator of the commercial, social and 
political iM-ogress of the country they irrigate, flow on until, in the 
language of Jeremiah S. Black, the\- "sink into the sweet embraces 



14 



FRO^I Till' liL'l_)SOX TO THE OHIO. 

of the [Mississippi, (l\'in^- in tlelij^htful fellowship together in the 
Gulf of Mexico." The 'Jhio — the beautiful river — whose waters 
flowing" with a smooth regularit}' make productive the renowned 
and luxuriant valley which bears its name — the noble tributary 
of the mighty 3ilississi])pi, that gladly carries on its buoyant breast 
the opulence of industry wedded l:)y the bands of steel to the majestic 
Hudson and partially exhibiting its rich nuptial gifts of poetry, 
history and scenic grace, modestly Ijows its head, and the curtain 
drops. 




W- 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 



]My life has been an eventful one in peace and war. I could 
relate the triumphs of the former and depict the horrors of the latter. 
I could go from battle to battle, along march after march, to prison 
and hospital, and recite heroic deeds of valor and tell tales of fatigue 
bravelv borne and sufferings manfully endured, speak in sympathetic 
tones of widowed hearts and grief-stricken firesides — but all that 
has been oft told, and the lurid colors of the panorama of war have 
been softened by the tintings of time. 

I will, therefore, take from the tablets of memory a few pictures 
to illustrate how undeviatingly life in the ordinary is painted in light 
and shade. 

Lights and shadows constantly float across life's pathway, scat- 
tering their gifts of joy and sorrow with a free hand. They are 
seen everywhere, in every relation of life, in every work, picture 
and day dream. Without them, poetr}' would not be — the artist's 
pencil would be idle, and the lessons of salvation unlearned. Re- 
cently, a cloud passed over the horizon of a home, casting a deep 
shadow upon its happiness and obscuring the view of its chief charm ; 
for a moment darkness prevailed, and all was sorrow ; then a balmy 
south breeze sprung up, and parting the cloud, let into that home the 
vision of a beautiful soul clothed in the robes of immortality, which, 
filling every nook and corner with the radiance of its loveliness, 
caused peace and contentment and warmth to enter — God is Love 
whether in the storm or calm. 

There is sadness and pathos in that picture, but the retrospec- 
tive flash-light does not always throw upon the canvas of memory 
sad and pathetic pictures. The subjects vary as do those in the 
galleries of art. Here is one entitled 

AX EATXIXG IX JULY. 

A suburb of a large city. Avenues lined with stately maples. 
Picturesque dwellings surrounded by broad lawns, reposing on wdiich 
are Flora's choicest contributions. The weather has been sultry 
and lunnanit}' sweltering. A thunder storm, and relief. 

The hum of the factories and the endless noises and discomforts 



i6 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

of the city had been left behind, and we were at home. Twihght 
had passed. A dehghtful breeze, laden with the odor of flowers, 
wafted bv. A pensive moon, in a clear sky, floating its light through 
an ideal atmosphere, casting the delicate tracery of the trees in 
shadowv beauty upon the dark green of the lawn, distant music float- 
ing in through the open windows, and the ripple of innocent laughter 
from sweet childhood soaring up from the vine-covered porch. 

The dark shadows of the day are behind us, and forgotten, whilst 
the bright light of joy and hajipiness and love and contentment is 
beaming upon and shining before us. 

This picture is seen because we have turned our appreciative 
eye towards those things of beauty and of love, with which a beni- 
ficent Creator surrounds us. 

But there hangs a picture with the border of mourning skirting 
its frame : — 

A CATASTROPHY. 

The hurrican passed, the floods had receded, the ruling days 
of Sirius were over : a bright sun, a clear sky greeted the cheerful 
workmen as they gathered around their work, high up in the air, 
where a building for God's services in man's advancement was 
majesticallv rearing its head. Not a cloud, not a ripple to mar the 
serenitv of the lovely August morning. Suddenly, without sign or 
admonition, the scafl'olding parted, and three souls were dashed into 
Eternity, whilst a quarter score were carried bleeding to its brink. 

Out of the shadow of the terrible calamity that overtook these 
men, comes the light showing the brittleness of the thread of life. 
the necessity for constant preparation for the inevitable change, and 
the leaning heavily and reliantly on the upholding arm of the Al- 
mighty. 

FLOOD AND CHARITY. 

In recalling the Johnstown tragedy it will be remembered that 
the flood's wrath was not confined to the romantic Conemaugh, 
although its swiftest and most unmerciful fury was expanded there, 
for in that wonderful, and prosperous valle>- which is irrigated by 
the picturesque Susquehanna as it majestically flows from its source 
in ^^'estern Xew York to the great bay within the borders of :\Iary- 
land and Mrginia, its track was marked by the Indies of the dead, 
the debris of ruined homes, the prostration of business and the de- 
struction of means of livelihood upon which thousands depended; 

17 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

whilst along the usually peaceful and always beautiful Juniata from 
Duncannon to Tyrone, the disaster was no less marked. 

As the fiood passed on, its work done, the subsiding waters 
disclosed the terrible stroke that had fallen upon Pennsylvania. In 
its mountains, along its valleys, 'midst the forests and farms, its 
towns and cities, wdiere the mines gave forth their wealth, and where 
the busy hum of industry had been heard, the cloud-burst, the storm 
and the rain cut a wide swath of death, desolation, want 
and misery. Thousands of Pennsylvanians found death beneath 
the waters. Millions of dollars worth of property were annihilated 
and over one hundred thousand people, as good and true as the 
world contained, were deprived of their ordinary means of support. 
So too, how at a later and nearer period, the wild winds, with the 
heated breath of the tropics, lashed the cruel waves of the Bay and 
Gulf into murderous fury and beautiful Galveston was submerged 
and its people and its wealth found death and destruction in the 
overwhelming tides. 

Dark shadows, like palls of gloom, hung over the Common- 
wealths. Turning from those shadows, we are charmed by the lights 
which come from the better impulses of man. A mightv throb 
moved the universe to deeds of kindness and loving help. Charity 
proved her claim to rank the virtues. That charity which is not 
a mere impulse of our passions or feelings governed bv suggestions 
of the moment, ])ut that is a true attribute of our natures, and which 
ever prompts us to assist one another along life's tortuous ways, 
applied the soothing balm to the wounded hearts and aided the 
stricken communities to rise again. 

VILLAGE LIFE. 

Philadelphia the imperial city — but stop ! Philadelphia is more 
than that ; an imperial city is founded upon pride, vain glorv and 
povert}-, and is an admixture of palace and hovel, splendor and 
scpialor, sending forth tyran.ny, pollution, pestilence and crime, while 
the birth-place of American independence, although an aggregation 
of villages, is composed of homes, work-shops and churches, crowned 
with sweet domesticity, with indwelling peace, plenty and content- 
ment, and allows the whole world to taste of the fruits of its industry 
and moralitx-. 

My thoughts were dwelling upon the delights of suburban life 

i8 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

witliin the boundaries of Philadelphia, whose villages are the pleasure 
and wonder of travellers. 

As life in general is governed by many and varied conditions 
which can only be fully understood and appreciated by viewing it in 
contrast, so is village life governed and so must it be viewed. 

There is no common standard to build a village by. It is 
usuallv a child of convenience, springing from the loins of necessity 
at the call of man's herding inclinations, and its life is what its 
environments make it. 

A^illage life in suburban Philadelphia is so different from life 
in the villages in the interior of the Commonwealth either singly or 
collectively that its comforts and its beauties, its conveniences and 
its pleasures are seen in their best light by bringing them in com- 
parison with it. 

The coimtry village is mostly an imincorporated community, 
ordinarily the centre of the township, clustered around an inn, a 
blacksmith shop, a cross-roads store and a meeting house, finding 
its highest expression of political importance from being the resi- 
dence of a fourth-class postmaster, the township supervisor and 
clerk and sometimes, but seldom, of that august specimen of the 
minor judiciary, the "squire." 

The population is made up principally of farmers and farm 
hands, who pass their days less wearily by dwelling' closer together 
than is permissible by the territorial limits of farms. The great 
events in these villages are mostly the arrival of the semi or tri- 
weekly mails at the post office, of a fresh invoice of goods at the 
store and of incipient statesmen bearing the burdens of state at 
the inn. 

These events bring the community together at one of the places 
named to discuss whatever questions the arrivals might suggest 
or to exchange gossip. Their pleasures are few and simple, the 
checker board and card table furnishing the most of them, whilst 
occasionally quoit throwing at the blacksmith shop and the spelling 
bee and moot court at the school house varies the monotony of 
their lives. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, their homely 
joys," for it is from just such villages as these that Hampdens rise 
and in which Lincolns expand into greatness, reaching up to origin- 
ality of thought and expression by having nature for a tutor and by 
beinsr so surrounded that their education becomes somethins- more 



19 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

than the absorption of other men's written ideas, opinions and 
conclusions. 

We turn from them to look at the village as a sul)url) of a city. 
This latter, like its country contemporary, has many lights and 
shadows varying in their character by location, Xorth, South, East 
and AX'est producing each some differences, displaying some individ- 
uality. 

The city villages, however, are alike in this — they possess no 
political autonomy, but are governed as dependencies by a central 
powder from which they are more or less isolated, and not as inde- 
pendent communities. To this fact must be attributed the absence 
of manv traits of village life. It deprives a community of that 
homogeneousness that local self-government brings to a people and 
the stimulus that spurs political amljition on. It produces a widened 
dissimilarity but conduces to retiracy and personal independence. 
It leaves the individual to pursue the even tenor of his way as his 
own sweet will dictates and brings to him personal recognition. 

Living in the metropolitan village, with the comforts of the 
city, and the delights of the country, is one of the greatest boons 
for the busy man to take advantage of. It is ever adding fresh 
strength. As he pauses in the rush of business to watch the shadows 
lengthen towards that hour \vhich betokens the time for him to drop 
his feverish cares and hie awa_\' to his village home, he takes on 
fresh life and activity, for in that distant spot he knows that peace 
and quiet await him. That peace and that quiet, with the evening 
stroll or evening drive, along embowered roads, the pure air, crystal 
Avaters, fragrant bloom of Flora, the kindly greetings and the 
interchange of confidences and experiences within the charmed 
family circle, creates an ideal life that brings man within sight of 
the land of contentment. 'Tis this life that fills the veins and 
arteries of the great city Avith the pure blood that keeps up its steady 
pulsation. 

But all this is changing and villages of sul)urban Philadelphia, 
which were bowers of rustic beatity and the abodes of health and 
contentment, have passed or are rapidly passing away. Their doom 
seems sounded. The rushing, dashing, flashing spirit of progressive- 
ness which rules this age is the cause. Even now stately A\'est 
Philadelphia, exclusive Germantown and busy Frank ford have 
passed beyond the village condition and haA'e ])Ut on metropolitan 
garments, whilst those l_u>autitul and charming spots. Fox Chase^ 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

Bustleton and Holniesburg', that give a rustic but romantic and 
peaceful edging to the picture of Philadelphia life, are threatened 
with the change. Already electric lights have deprived them of 
the softened shadows so comforting to a perturbed spirit on a 
moonlit night, and the tocsin has sounded announcing the approach 
of the trolley roads, whose entree to those charming localities will 
forever eliminate their quiet, dreamy, midday life. 

The gas pipe, the water pipe and the electric light have invaded 
the quiet village, the trolley line in the foreground and sewers, 
paved streets, curbed sidewalks, and the woodman's axe in the 
perspective, admonish us that the view is changing, that the dreamy 
village life will soon be o'er and the village lost in the stillness of 
death which pervades the atmosphere of the so-called finished resi- 
dential parts of a great city. 

Milage life, when absorbed by city activities, becomes gilded 
death. 

Walking through miles of coldly beautiful streets of a former 
village, once so full of life and kindilv neighborliness, the walk seems 
like one through a finished cemetery well endowed. Elegant resi- 
dences, Avell-paved, well-kept streets, close cropped lawns and 
well trimmed trees greet the eye, but life seems absent, the song 
birds are unknown, bloom has the mitsty shell of the hot house 
around it, art has supplanted nature and even the combative 
sparrow has sought other fi.elds of action. City utilities have 
absorbed the village and village life has become gilded death. 

Whilst speaking of villages a picture of one in the Western 
part of our coiuitry comes up in memory : — 

A OUAIXT OLD TOWN. 

Isolated in Central Missouri is the quaint town of Arrow Rock. 
Saline countv, the connecting link of which with the effete civiliza- 
tion of the East is a "star route" mail line, whose equipment consists 
of a dilapidated, paintless carry-all with dished wheels, drawn by 
a pair of ancient horses, whose harness of leather and rope must 
have done service in the days of the Spanish occupation. The 
potentate who directs the movement of this line of transportation 
and who has the responsibility of the United States resting upon his 
shoulders, and who must have been a veteran when Boone was 
young, and whose dress is a combination of the ancient Roman, 
modern Greek and the peripatetic Coxeyite, is a fitting comparison 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

to the horses and vehicle. This hne runs daily over an almost 
bottomless road to Xapton, a wayside station nine miles away on the 
Calamitv branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and is the short 
line of communication with the outside world. 

There is much to interest one there, although most of the in- 
teresting matter is retrospective. It is sad to contemplate the decay 
of the river towns, of which this is a fair sample. Walking- in 
gravevards among tombstones may be interesting, but the walk is 
always through an atmosphere of sadness. Like through the grave- 
yards, one walks there among the records of the "have beens." 

Arrow Rock landing, from whence the village derives its name, 
was one of the earliest and most prominent of the landings on the 
Missouri river, and the day has been when not less than 200 teams 
have stood in line waiting to unload and load up on the levee. It was 
a trading post of note when the French possessed the territory, and 
continued of more or less commercial importance until it closed its 
doors against the rapidly advancing locomotive. The name Arrow 
Rock was derived from a large blufif of flint rock, out of and at 
the foot of which the Indians made their arrov,- heads. Surrounded 
by their slaves the earlv families lived in a baronial manner and 
vaunted an independence that would not brook restraint. As 
emigration pursued its way up the "big muddy," prosperity 
came to this locality. But with growth and prosperity came 
a pride of independence in the possession of an interior water- 
way leading with cheapness to market and to wealth that caused 
these land barons to spurn the railroad with its friendly, snorting- 
iron horse. From this pride came the fall, and Booneville, Marshall 
and Slater, wooing the bands of iron, are now rejoicing in the 
prosperity that once belonged to Arrow Rock. The river in which 
the pride centred, with the irony of fate, has been receding until 
the landing and village are now inland. 

These "barons," confirmed in the long-practiced habit of watch- 
ing from the bluffs the majestic movements of the steamboats as they 
turned the many graceful and picturesque bends in the river or. 
exhilirated by the Imig columns of asce-:ding smoke from the river 
boats striving with one another to first secure the landing, could not 
tolerate the thought of change. The crv of the bowsman. as he cast 
the lead, of three feet — four — four and a half — six feet — twelve — 
twain — mark twain — in those drawling, half-chanting peculiar tones 
common to the IMissouri rivermen of those davs, was a music thev 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

■would not exchange for the locomotive's shrill whistle. The enter- 
tainment they derivedfrom witnessing the busy scenes when the boats 
came in — the roustabouts singing as they trotted to and from the 
warehouses as they took off or put on cargo, and the hurry and bustle 
of travellers as they left or boarded the boat, accompanied as they 
frequentlv were by the wierd effects of burning pine-knot torches, 
could not be compensated for by the unromantic railroad station. 

Thus the change came, and to-day we are among the wreck of 
values and decay of properties. Just across the way the ruins of 
the blacksmith shop — a broken ploughshare, a rusty old horse shoe, 
a shrivelled bellows in the last stage of atrophy, a shattered anvil — 
bear mute testimony to the rapidity of the decay. The tones of the 
anvil which once rang out so merrily under the blows of the sledge 
hammer sound to us now, as we hit the dethroned monarch of the 
smith}' with our walking stick, like ghostly echoes come back to haunt 
the solitude. 

Out on the bluff close to the old landing is the wreck of a dis- 
mantled mill, its machinery gone, the structure a pile of decayed 
debris, the large boiler rusty but intact, too large for remunerative 
removal, remaining to emphasize the desolation. As the boiler re- 
clines there amidst the ruin it reminds the beholder of a fallen steed 
dead upon the field of battle. 

There is some very interesting personal and national history as- 
sociated with the region. It was there that old Dr. Sappington, the 
friend and companion of Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson and Thomas 
H. Benton, lived. He was that famous old physician who conquered 
the ague in the river bottoms and made his name a household word 
from the source to the mouth of the Missouri and up and down its 
tributaries by prescribing his celebrated Tennessee remedy of whisky 
and Peruvian bark. 

The doctor had two sons-in-law and one grandson who went out 
from .A.rrow Rock township to the State capital as Governors of the 
State. The elder Governor Marmaduke married one of his daugh- 
ters, whose son, John S. Marmaduke, became a Major-General in the 
Confederate service and subsequently Governor of the State. Clai- 
borne Jackson, who is known to history as the Rebel Governor of 
Missouri, and who packed up his family and slaves and went into 
exile and his death, was also from there, and three times a son-in- 
law of Dr. Sappington, having married successively three of the 
doctor's daughters. Colonel Will S. Jackson, the famous partisan 

23 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

ranger, as his friends delighted to call him, or the infamous biish- 
wacker, as his enemies st>-led him, was a familiar rider over those 
roads in days gone by. The fnn of the James gang or the Younger 
boys and their posse as they took charge of the village streets and 
made the tenderfoot dance to the music of rifle or pistol balls has 
sunk into th.e grave of long ago. 

Shingles are turning their edges with the gray beards of age to 
the warm side of the sim, nails are protruding from clap boards, 
sidewalks are disappearing in the gullies by their side, and yet there 
is a solemnity in all this. The sublime grandeur of the solitude 
amid such surroundings on a bright warm afternoon, with its breeze 
of balmy freshness as it comes from beyond the waters, opens up a 
scene for thought and thoughtful meditation. 

THE GREAT WHITE CITY. 

A day's ride from Arrow Rock will land the traveller in 
Chicago. I can never think of that city without recalling the Great 
White Cit}' which rose as if at the toucli of the magician's wand and 
suddenly disappeared as if under the witch's spell. 

Leaving guide-book and note-book at home, I entered the Fair 
Grounds like a feather, without plan or design, to be wafted hither 
and thither at the sweet pleasure of the breeze of the moment, yield- 
ing myself a willing slave to the influences of inspiration, and devot- 
ing my time to enjoying the beauty and magnificence of the Exposi- 
tion as a whole, bringing to my mind a realizing sense of the progress 
the splendor and luxury of the age in which we are living. 

With the exception of Krupp's, single exhibits were dwarfed by 
the magnitude of the scale upon which the Exposition was based. 
Out of this dwarfing of achievement the stimulus for greater 
endeavor has grown. 

That panorama of humanity, the Alidway, fringed with odd and 
cjuaint manners and customs of other races and climes, was a place 
for a restful hour in which to divert the mind from the glut of 
splendor. 

There was one thing prominent by its absence. In all those 
bustling crowds, amidst Oriental splendor and ^^"estern utility, bv the 
greatest achievements in art, science, music, poetry, manufactures, 
commerce, and agriculture, domesticity's sweetest, greatest charm 
w^as absent. Go where vou would, along the Court of Honor, at the 



24 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

Peristyle, around Alacnionnies Fountain, on the broad avenues, pick- 
ing your way through the paths of Woody Island, lingering around 
exhibits here, there, and everywhere, the baby carriage with its 
occupant, the autocrat of the household, was not to be seen. 

The autocrat was there, however. Like the parcel in the parcel- 
room at the railway station he was properly checked and packed 
away, to be called for, and only given up to his claimant upon the 
surrender of the check and the pa}-ment of so much per hour. What 
risks ! Lose the check and shrink from contemplating the possibili- 
ties. 

The highest achievement aimed at was in the architectural effect 
and artistic groupings of the buildings. The greatest pleasure 
emanated from contemplating those effects and groupings. Time 
and place was evening and the Lagoon. On the edge of evening, 
as the shadows of the buildings sported on the waters, and the declin- 
ing sun reflected its glitter from the domes, the scene became one of 
enchantment, as in the noiseless electric launch one glided from 
building to building, sipping, like the honey bee, the hidden sweetness 
whilst listening to the dip of the oar as the gondola skipped bv ; the 
eye, heart, and soul drinking in a heavenly peace, haloed with beauty 
and love and contentment, the products of the blending of propor- 
tions, designs, and colors. 

THE TALE OF TWO CEAIETERIES. 

I have been deeply impressed in travelling with the ease with 
which the mental store-house can be filled, no matter how prosaic, 
mournful or disturbing the object of the journey, if a person but uses 
the resources within himself or herself and utilizes the fragments of 
time that come to everyone. In illustration, permit me to narrate the 
incidents of two short journeys I made in quest of information rela- 
tive to the first rector of the parish with which I am connected. The 
impressions left upon my mind in their Lights and Shadows cannot 
be effaced. 

I will not dwell upon the difficulties I encountered in obtaining 
reliable data, either abroad or at home, in Great Britain or the Ignited 
States, in Holmesburg, his first, or in Huntingdon, his second and 
last parish, relative to the rector's personal history. It seemed 
strange that a man of his evident learning and his acceptableness as 
rector of two parishes in the great Diocese of Pennsvlvania should 



25 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

have died, leaving" so little of written record behind him. The expla- 
nation came, however, when in pursuit of his record, I visited his 
place of burial. After a night's ride of over two hundred miles I 
reached Huntingdon in the early morning of a beautiful August 
day. In the city the day preceding, a dense humidity and a high 
temperature prevailed, producing a listless effect upon humanity, and 
made living almost burdensome. All know the condition — a burning 
sun — dusty roads — parched appearance of everything the eye rests 
upon — the skin clammy — the mind ill at ease and the insects virulent 
and ■\'oracious — and will appreciate the change I encountered upon 
disembarking from the train. As I did so, the experience was most 
delightful. A genial sun, clear sky and a cool and invigorating air 
fanned by a softened breeze, reminding one of an early winter morn- 
ing in the South Atlantic, greeted me, and made the steep ascent of 
the hillside road leading to the cemetery one of pleasure. 

(See description on pages lo and ii.) 

'Twas there, amongst such environments, on the sloping hillside, 
clustered in a bed of ivy, I found the marble tablets which revealed 
to me the last earthly resting place of the rector and his two little 
Doys, and which brought my search to an end by indicating where his 
record could be obtained. A plain marble slab marks the spot 
where he lies. Brushing the ivy to one side I read from the inscrip- 
tion on the stone, "His record is on high." 

Later on in the year, on a quiet Sabbath afternoon in mid-Ad- 
vent, I entered All Saints, Lower Dublin, Church-yard — another city 
of the dead, over two hundred miles nearer to the rising sun than the 
one just spoken of. Beyond the busy marts of men and society's 
dizzy whirl, the cjuietness was oppressive. Nothing seemed to ani- 
mate nature except now and then the thunder of the trolley car as it 
swept bv on the wings of the lightning. The day was bleak and 
cheerless, and gloom dropped everywhere from the deepened gray of 
the sky, causing even the pallor of the tombstones to increase. The 
sumiuer's blan.ket of green had been folded up, and the stubble of the 
golden corn in the dark earth of the fields around emphasized death's 
surroundings. Over yonder, hidden from sight by a piece of woods, 
the shivering remnant of a once noble forest, was the Delaware 
River, u])on whose clear bosom the December chill was forming an 
icy scum, ^foving among the graves, I came to that of the rector's 
wife m the midst of a long line of kinfolk, with her two little daugh- 
ters, one on each side, resting by her. Right in front rose a beautiftd 

26 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

cedar, whose green boughs were in strong contrast to the many leaf- 
less trees standing around in the full grandeur and grace of their 
denuded limbs. As I stood there, my mind feeling the influence of 
the pathos that the two cemeteries and their occupants suggested, 
and thinking how strange it all seemed, my eyes fell upon the tomb- 
stone of one of the little girls, and I read, "It is well." It seemed 
to me like an addition to the inscription on her father's tomb, or the 
connecting link that bound together the separated graves of father 
and sons, mother and daughters : — "His record is on high. It is 
well." 

This story of the two rivers, the Juniata and the Delaware, but 
illustrates the fact that shadows but show the progress of the light 
behind them and like them, 

"All things journey: sun and moon, 
Morning, noon and afternoon, 

Night and all her stars ; 
Twixt the east and western bars 

Round they journey, 

Come and go ! 
We go with them !" 

and progress is eternal, its car going on forever, carrying with it the 
hopes, aspirations and ambitions of men. It is well, therefore, that 
all look into the future through the light of the present. Christian- 
ity came into the world out of the door of a stable, directed by the 
hand of a divine infant, and through the centuries which have since 
elapsed it has grown into a mighty force, ruling and controlling the 
destinies of mankind. It advances men step by step to the goal of 
eternal happiness. Without it humanity instead of advancing 
towards divinity would retrograde to brutishness and savagery. 
Success in every undertaking having worldly or heavenly objects in 
view depends upon it, as it is the one royal road. To travel that 
road cooled by the refreshing breezes of Faith, Hope and Charity, 
Chastity, Obedience and Poverty, duty to God, to man, to self, must 
ever be the nding motive of ore's journey. A man who travels thus 
need i:ot fear the twaddle of the idle, slothful or vicious emissaries of 
evil who go forth to breed and feed hatred, selfishness and infidelity. 

Lights and shadows will accompany us throughout our lives. 
Whilst we enjoy the former, we must not shrink from the latter as 
they cross our pathways. Do all things well, and all thuigs will 

27 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

come to us, ancl. then, when the haven is reached — tliat charming 
land of delig-ht, where the tents are more precious than the sparkling 
diamond, the streets more valuable than the glittering gold, whose 
waters reflect greater beauty than the crystal glass or shining silver, 
and where the sprays from God's fountain of love spread out refresh- 
ingly and unceasingly — we will be greeted with love's incense, sweet 
music, enraptured smiles, the songs of birds, delicate flowers, deli- 
cious fruits, cooling waters, gentle breezes and God's all important 
approval. 




28 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 



In the summer of 1852, whilst standing on the banks of the 
Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, watching the ever-changing pan- 
orama of flying cloud and moving tree that was being mirrored in the 
crystal waters of that incomparable stream, and wondering upon 
what tide leading to the harbor of success my boat of life-work would 
be launched, fate determined what my mind could not. 

Just as a laughing ripple dashed over a protruding rock, chasing 
a silvery finned fish that had made a mad leap out from its limpid 
element, I was aroused from m}' reveries by feeling a hand upon my 
arm and hearing a voice inquiring if I wanted employment in the 
telegraph office. 

Seeing an opportunity to connect myself with the thought of the 
great world which pulsated over the iron threads, I impulsively re- 
plied in the affirmative, and as impulsively accepted the position of 
messenger boy for the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company, at a 
salarv of eight dollars a month. Following the gentleman who em- 
ployed me, I entered the office on North Third Street, and was 
installed in my new position. 

I can }'et see the elevated tables holding the instruments, the high 
stools on which with haughty mien and wrinkled brow sat the mighty 
operator ; the large square boxes containing tlie paper tape where- 
upon the messages were recorded in telegraphic characters, and over 
in the corner the bench intended for the throne of that monarch — 
the messenger boy. 

"Twas from that bench that I looked forward to a telegraphic 
career and began my study of the mystic art, and now, looking 
backward over the intervening space of time and relating some of 
mv observations and experiences in connection with telegraphy, my 
eye rests upon the old bench in the corner. 

A messenger boy in those days had duties to perform, and his 
position was in no sense a sinecure. He was expected to have the 
office swept out, the Grove batteries cleaned and made up, the instru- 

29 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

nient paper nicely wound on the reels, and everything in readiness 
for business by six o'clock in the morning. Delivering messages., 
running errands for the operators, changing the paper boxes, and 
stealing the trade (for operators did not like teaching boys in those 
days any better than they do to-day) ordinarily filled up the time until 
9 and lo o'clock at night. On occasions when the line men were not 
about, breaks in the line occurring, the messenger was sent out with 
wire and plyers to mend them, and many times facing an almost 
blinding storm in doing it. When he succeeded in mastering the 
science so as to enable him to answer calls and send messages, he 
was utilized for that purpose by the operators, who took advantage 
of the opportunity to read novels or have a game of checkers. The 
heat and burdens of the office were thrown upon the boy, but it was 
his school of discipline and learning, so that when the nation became 
imperilled, it was the messenger boys of the 50's who made the mili- 
tary telegraphers of the 6o"s, and to whose patience, endurance and 
discretion the Government of the United States was indebted for the 
best courier field service ever connected with any army. 

Have you ever observed that communication by telegraph has 
become such an everyday matter of fact that in reading or inditing 
telegrams no heed is given to the magic fluid which so promptly re- 
sponds to our commands, or the great length of time it was appealing 
to men to utilize it in the direction of messenger service ? Glimpses 
of it were seen by the ancients, and God, speaking out of the whirl- 
wind in challenge to Job, clearly foreshadowed the electric telegraph 
when he said, "Canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say 
unto thee, here we are?"' 

Without running down the ages and marking each successive 
step of scientific groping in the evolution of the telegraph as perfected 
to-day to show how God's words to Job left their impress on the 
minds of men, we find that the idea of applying electricity to tele- 
graphic purposes obtained in the early years of the eighteenth 
century, and that each succeeding decade witnessed its growth in 
more or less brilliancy until it reached its culmination in Morse's 
wonderful invention in 1832. It should be understood that Morse 
was an inventor, not a discoverer. He invented a machine. He 
did not discover any law of electricity. There is no doubt that the 
discoveries and experiments of Watson, Franklin, Galvani, A'olta. 
Oersted and Henry, led up to the invention, but ^Nlorse is yet none 

30 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

the less to be called a benefactor of his race. His invention flashed 
upon the world, and in the language of one of his poetic friends : 

"Then the brotherhood lost on Shinar's plain 

Came back to the peoples of earth again. 
"Be one," sighed the ^Mountain and shrnnk away ; 
"Be one," mnrmured Ocean, in dashes of spray; 
"Be one," said Space, '"I forbid no more," 
"Be one," echoed Time, "till my years are o'er." 
"We are one," said the Nations, and hand met hand. 

In a thrill electric from land to land." 

After encountering- opposition and nearly endless obstacles, 
Professor 3*Iorse, when hope had almost deserted him and poverty 
stared him in the face, received Governmental aid for the construc- 
tion of an experimental line. 

Then, as the lamented Blaine so eloquently said : 
"The little thread of wire placed as a timid experiment between 
the National Capital and a neighboring- city grew and lengthened 
and multiplied with almost the rapidity of the electric current that 
darted along its iron nerves, until within his own lifetime continent 
was bound unto continent, hemisphere answered through ocean's 
depths unto hemisphere, and an encircled globe flashed forth his 
eulogv in the unmatched eloquence of a grand achievement. 

The first fruit of tliat experiment's success w^as a line built be- 
tween Harrisburg and Lancaster, alongside the tracks of the Harris- 
burg, Portsmotith, ]\It. Joy and Lancaster Railroad Company. 

No sooner had the practicability of Morse's invention been 
proven than the patentees made numerous contracts for the construc- 
tion of lines throughout the country, and the most valuable, important 
and generoits of them was given to Henry O'Reilly, of Rochester. 
N. Y^ 

Under his contract it became necessary to construct a line be- 
tween Lancaster and Harrisburg on or before January i, 1846. to con-' 
nect at Lancaster with a line to be constructed by the Magnetic Com- 
pany between Baltimore and New York, on the route via York, 
Columbia, Lancaster and Philadelphia. The route of this latter line, 
however, was changed so as to cross the Susquehanna at Port Deposilr 
instead of Columbia, and O'Reilly subsequently connected his western 
line with it at Philadelphia. He did not lose any time in performing 
his part of the contract, but with the aid of Bernard O'Connor, of 

31 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

Lancaster, completed the line to Harrisburg on the 24th of November, 
1845. It was a primitive affair. Small, unbarked chestnut poles 
were planted about one hundred yards apart so as to make eighten 
poles to the mile. Through the top of each pole was inserted a 
turned black walnut cross-arm, the ends of which were covered Avith 
gummed cloth. The conductor was a number fourteen copper wire 
attached to the poles by giving it a double twist around the gummed 
cloth ends of the cross-arms. The gummed cloth not proving sats- 
factory as an insulator, insulation was somewhat improved by 
replacing it with a cotton cloth di])ped in molten beeswax. 

There was a great deal of enjoyment among the builders, not- 
withstanding the difficulties with which they were surrounded. They 
planted poles whilst singing this refrain : — 

"Sink the poles, boys, firm and strong, 
Short and close together ; 
Solder the joints of the mystic thong, 
And let it stand forever!" 

The instruments arrived about January i, 1846. and were placed 
in circuit by James D. Reid, who possessed some telegraphic knowl- 
edge obtained from his friendship with Professor Morse and by his- 
experience on the experimental line. The relays enclosed in large 
walnut boxes required the strength of two men to lift them on to a 
table. The reason for this heavy weight grew^ out of the theory of 
Professor j\Iorse and Alfred A ail that the wire of the relay should 
be of the same size as that of the line and consequently they covered 

their's with a number fourteen copper wire wound with cotton. 

After the instruments had been put in circuit and the battery 
located at Harrisburg, the operators, David Brooks and Henry C. 
Hepburn, at Lancaster, and James D. Reid and H. Courtney Hughes, 
at Harrisburg, settled down to hard work in their efforts to open up 
communication between the two offices. With the exception of Reid.. 
none of the party could read or write the telegraphic alphabet with- 
out constant consultation with a copy of it printed in a little book of 
instructions by Alfred A'ail, which they kept open before them. 

For a Aveek they pounded and adjusted, adjusted and pounded, 
without any intelligible signals reaching either office. At last, how- 
ever, on the 8th of January, 1846, just as despair was on the point of 
supplanting patient endeavor, whilst practicing writing the alphabet 
by pressing the finger against the armature of the rela}-, and Hepburn 



32 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

■vvas drumming" on the key, Brooks made the startHng discovery that 
tlie armature of the relay had, under certain conditions, a motion 
corresponding- to that made on the key. Turning to Hepburn, he 
made known his discovery and tokl him to wait a moment, and he 
woukl so adjust the armature that writing upon the register coukl Ije 
done by simply manipulating the key. Brooks made the adjustment. 
when the armature began to work apparently of its own volition 
and the pen lever of the register responded. vStarting the paper to 
see ^^hat marks or impressions would be made on it, they had the 
great satisfaction, after comparing the marks with their copy of the 
alphabet, to read, after a long line of dots, the following words : — 
"Why don't you write, you rascals?" These few words, written by 
James D. Reid on that Jacksonian anniversary, formed the first 
intelligible message ever sent upon a line in Pennsylvania, and gave 
to the line itself the distinction of being the first in operation after the 
A\'ashington-Baltimore experimental line of Professor ^lorse. 

There was great rejoicing in Harrisburg when it was found that 
instantaneous communication could be had with Lancaster. People 
flocked to the offices to see the wonder of the age. but made no mate- 
rial use of the line, the patronage being confined to writing names 
in telegraphic characters on the paper ribbon with written letters 
underneath in explanation. Such was the only source of revenue. 
The revenue, as will be readily perceived, was small, even from that 
source, for the first day's receipts at Harrisburg were lo cents, and 
at Lancaster 654 cents. In 1852. James D. Reid. in speaking of the 
line, said : "The first day's receipts of the great national office in 
Washington were one cent, but Harrisburg, brighter than Washing- 
ton, saw the clear visage of a dime, whilst sober-sided Lancaster 
gloried in the possession of a'fip.' " 

Although the line was not a financial success, it furnished 
additional proof of the value of Professor Morse's invention. The 
relays were difiicult of adjustment, and would not remain adjusted 
for the period of five minutes. 

The line itself worked only in clear, cold weather, and then 
very irregularly. Breaks were of daily occurrence, and so certain 
were they to happen that Brooks w-ent to the Lancaster ofiice at 
half-past four every morning to test for current, and it was the 
exception when he found it. Finding no current he would shoulder 
a bundle of copper wire and start out to find and repair the "break," 
taking passage on the night line, a train which passed Lancaster at 

35 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

5 o'clock in the morning on its way from Philadelphia to Harrisbnrg, 
This train, climbing over the Conewago hills, made the distance from 
Lancaster to Harrisbnrg, thirty-seven miles, in from fonr and a-half 
to five hours. 

Reid and Hepburn left the line in February, 1846. James ]M. 
Lindsay was sent from Baltimore to succeed Reid, and he at Harris- 
burg and Brooks at Lancaster, continued for a few weeks to operate 
the line. As narrated before, the only revenue accruing to the line 
was derived from sending the names of the curious over it. The 
novelty of that patronage wearing off, patrons ceased to materialize, 
and cash receipts failed to appear. There being no other available 
revenue, and the line constantly breaking, O'Reilly ordered Lindsay 
to Philadelphia and Brooks to take down the wire, sell it for old 
copper, and apply the proceeds to paying the operators' boarding and 
washing bills, which were in arrears and had been accruing from the 
time of their arrival. By March i, 1846, this initial commercial line 
had passed into histor}-. The money for its construction was fur- 
nished by a Rochester, N. Y. company, known as "The Atlantic. 
Lake and ]Mississippi Valley Telegraph Company." 

The line formed the link in the great chain of projected tele- 
graphs, which in less than twenty years from the time of its comple- 
tion was to bind in indissoluble bonds the Atlantic to the Pacific and 
in less than thirty years was to unite four of the grand divisions or 
continents of the world together, bringing all languages to a commor* 
centre, benefitting commerce, trade, science, art, invention, agricul- 
ture and literature, and proving itself an invaluable factor in produc- 
ing the remarkable and progressive age in which we live and which 
marked the closing hours of the nineteenth century with ineft'aceable 
distinctness as civilization's most advanced period since the opening 
of the Christian era. 

During the short life of the line it created quite a stir in the 
sister counties of Dauphin and Lancaster. The copper wire conduc- 
tor, stretched tightly between poles, gave the wintry blasts the 
opportunity of producing somewhat musical, weird and fantastic 
sounds that could be heard for some distance, to the great discomfort 
of the rustics. The public mind having somewhat of a superstitious 
bend, many people in the neighborhood of the line, alarmed by the 
sounds proceeding from the wire as the winds swept over it, would 
walk a very considerable distance out of their way, often placing 
themselves at great inconvenience, particularly after sundown, to: 

36 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

avoid passing- under or near it. Many dismal stories were told of its 
supernatural powers, and one woman actually fenced m a pole to 
prevent her cow rubbing against it, fearmg that the mdk might be 
spoiled ! 

One Saturdav afternoon, shortlv after the line was in operation, 
:a fathering assembled at the -store-' in one of the villages and the 
alhabsorbing topic of conversation was the -telegraph. The big 
man- of the vicinitv was there. For two terms he had representee) 
his district in the lower house of the Legislature, and he now felt 
it his dutv to express his opinion on the subject, which he did by 
savino-- "This telegraph is a great thing. When I had the honor o 
representing vou in the Legislature, I often thought about it, and 
Laving turned the subject over in my mind, the conclusion reached 
Lv me in regard to it is that it will do well enough for carrying letters 
and small packages, but it will never do for carrying large bundles 
and bale boxes." 

David Lechler, a well-kept and humorous man, was the proprie-^ 
tor of the North American Hotel, where the office in Lancaster was 
located, and made the telegraph the basis for playing pranks upon 
the public At this day few can credit the curiosity and credulity 
which characterized the people in connection with the telegraph, and 
Low few had even an idea of the principles governing it. Lechlei. 
discerning the trend of the mind of the people, turned it to advantage 
in fun-makng, and undertook to unfold the mystery to those who 
visited his house. It was his great delight on market mornings to 
o-ather a crowd of countrvmen and women in the bar-room, and then 
explain to them in Pennsylvania Dutch the wonders of the great 
invention. There was no storv that he could invent or apply or that 
credulitv would accept in connection with the telegraph that he did 
not relate. As soon as his harangue had raised the curiosity of his 
hearers to the highest notch, he would hurriedly enter the room 
where the telegraph office was located, and immediately returning, 
would show a pair of hose, a handkerchief or a newspaper which he 
had previouslv punctured with holes, as specimens of the telegraphs 
possibilities, at the same time gravely saying: "l received them m 
just fortv seconds from Philadelphia.- There was none to doubt 
Lechler's word or to take into consideration that the line did no« 
extend to Philadelphia, but all, with open-eyed wonder, tried to 
account for the articles passing over and around the cross-arms. 

37 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

They were satisfied, however, with Lechler's explanation that that 
process was the inventor's secret, he dared not divulge. 

In the reminiscences of the early lines of telegraph, I recall the 
fact that in those days it was supposed that if a wire was covered 
with a coat of tar, it would be preserved from rusting. One day 
it was ordered that the wire of theSouthern route from Philadelphia 
should be treated that way, and ]Mr. James D. Reid was sent out from 
^Mlmington, Del., with a tar l)ucket and sponge to coat the wire. 
His experience was interesting. He had left the tar bucket on top 
of a pole. On his climbing down, the bucket upset, scattering the 
contents all over him. He was a sorry subject when he reached his 
boarding house. After cleaning up, he sat down to a table and com- 
posed the following : — 

"There is not a heart however rude, 

But hath some Httle flower 
To brighten up its solitude, 
And scent the evening hour. 

"There's not a heart, liowever cast, 
By grief and sorrow down. 
But hath some memory of the past 
To love and call its own. 

"Ah ! yes, ours was a tarry pot. 
Of fragrance rich and rare, 
That brought dark memories back again, 
Upon less fragrant air. 

"Oh ! in this heart, though rough and rude, 
Come with thy former power. 
To brighten up our solitude. 

And scent the evening hour." 

At this time the following advertisement appeared in the Phil- 
adelphia papers : — 

"The Harrisburg train leaves for Lancaster at I o'clock, arrives at 
Lancaster at 4. — News may be telegraphed from Harrisburg to Lancaster up 

to half-past 3, and be brought to Philadelphia by Railroad." 

It does not appear, however, that there was any one of sufficient 
enterprise to avail themselves of the brilliant opporttmity. \An-iilst 
the line was building to Lancaster there was also one under construc- 
tion by the JMagnetic Telegraph Company between Philadelphia 

38 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

and Xew York. Application had been made to the Xew Jersey 
Raih-oad Company to erect the poles alongside the tracks of that 
company. The application was refused on the ground that the tele- 
graph was in opposition to the railroad's best interests, inasmuch 
as it would permit persons to transact their business speedily with 
distant points and remain at home, thus doing away with the neces- 
sity for railroad travel. The line was completed along the old stage 
road via Xorristown and Xew Hope, Pa., and Somerville and Xew- 
ark, X. J. Xotwithstanding this, the first and only railroad opposi- 
tion, Morse's electric telegraph moved in construction with the 
railrc-ad, and became the lacter's most valuable servant in promoting 
the economies of operating. And it was not long after its worth was 
established that the various railroad companies erected lines of their 
own. Ten years after the disappearance of the Harrisburg-Lancas- 
ter line, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company had completed its line 
of railroad from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, and constructed its own 
line of telegraph through to Philadelphia. Prior to 1855 the Com- 
pany used the wires of the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company, 
but on the first of January of that year it had constructed and put 
in operation the first division of its independent line between Pitts- 
burgh and Altoona. The second division, between Altoona and 
Harrisburg, was completed by January i, and the last, from Harris- 
burg to Philadelphia, April i, 1856. It consisted of a line of poles 
with double cross-arms, an iron-bound parafiine-covered glass insula- 
tor, and a single X^o. 9 galvanized wire. Its total cost was $45,198.03. 
or about $128 per mile. 

The telegraph department of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
panv started right, with clear and concise rules for its government, 
wdfich were prepared by l\lr. Robert Pitcairn, and has steadily 
advanced under their inspiration until to-day its movement is as true 
as that of the best chronometer. From its school of the telegraph 
the Company has drawn some of its most thorough and efiicient offi- 
cials ; and out from that school, at the outbreak of the Rebellion, went 
the first military telegraph operators at the call of the Government. 
On April 17, t86i, I went with Thomas A .Scott to Governor Curtin's 
office at Harrisburg, and there, with a relay magnet and a key placed 
on a window sill, opened the first militar}' telegraph office on this 
continent. In the same office, on the 25th of April, 1861, on the call 
of j\Ir. Scott, there reported for orders David Strouse from Mifflin. 
D. Homer Bates from Altoona, Richard O'Brien from Greensburg, 



39 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

and Samuel Brown from Pittsburgh, four of the best operators on 
the hue. They received their instructions and started by a circuitous 
route for Washington, which they reached on the 27th, and became 
the first telegraph operators to be regularly employed in the United 
States Government telegraph organization. Numbers of others oft 
the line followed, and aided in forming a ^lilitary Telegraph Corps 
such as had never before follow^ed the fortunes of war. Mr. Strouse 
was selected as Superintendent. He was one of the earliest operators 
on the Company's lines, unustially bright, devoted to duty and liter- 
ature, and possessed of a generous nature that won for him the love 
of all with whom he came in contact. Of frail constitution, he soon 
yielded to the malarial influences of the Potomac, and Avas compelled 
in the early fall to return to his home on the Jtmiata River. He died 
of consumption at the age of 23, in Novem.ber, i86t. A short time 
before Ins death, he composed these touching verses on his departure : 

"Gentle river, ever flowing, 

Where my early days were passed, 
Like your waters, I am going 
Sadly to the sea at last. 

"To that ocean, dark and dreary, 
Whence no traveler comes again, 
Where the spirit, worn and weary. 
Finds repose from grief and pain. 

"O'er the world I long have wandered ; 
Now, a stranger, I return ; 
Hope, health and manhood squandered. 
Life's last lesson here to learn. 

"Calmly on the banks reposing, 
I am waiting for the da}' 
When calm twilight, softly closing. 
Bears the trembling soul away." 

Out of the nucleus formed by the little band of Pennsylvania 
Railroad telegraph operators grew the wondrous IMilitarv Telegraph 
Corps, in which were enrolled during the war t\^■clve hundred voung 
men — telegraph operators — whose ages ranged from sixteen to 
twentv-two years— boys in years and stature, but giants in loyalty 
and in the amount of work the}- performed for their country. They 
did not plan campaigns nor fight battles, but amid the roar of conflict, 
were found coolly advising the commanding general of the battle's 

40 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

progress. They formed the corps that was the very nerves of the 
army during the war, and so considered by all those who came in 
contact with it, and yet it was not recognized as an integral part of 
that army. 

Their position in the army was a peculiar one, whether enlisted 
men or volunteers — and there were both classes in the service — 
they were not subject to the orders of its active officers, but came 
tuider the immediate direction of President Lincoln as Commander- 
in-Chief, through the Secretary of War. They were in effect field, 
couriers, A\ith enlarged responsibilities. The secrets of the Nation 
were entrusted to them, and the countersign of the army was often 
in their possession a week or more in advance of its promulgation. 
All the movements of the army, all the confidence of the comman- 
ders were entrusted to them, and yet not one was ever knovv-n to 
betray that kn.owledge and confidence in the most remote degree. 

Richard O'Brien was offered at one time $20,000 in gold to be- 
tray Iiis trust, under these circumstances : Dr. Wright, the most 
prominent physician of Norfolk, had been drawn by lot to kill the 
commander of the first detachment of negro troops who might enter 
the city. Lieutenant Sanborn, a brave New England soldier, had 
the misfortune to be that commander, and fell under the bullet of 
the assassin. Wright was captured, tried by court martial and sen- 
tenced to be hung. His friends brought powerful influences to bear 
upon President Lincoln for a reprieve, which up to the last moment 
of the execution, they hoped might be wired. As the minutes flew 
feverishly by and the reprieve came not, his friends, as a last resort, 
offered O'Brien $20,000 to forge a telegram ordering Wright's 
release. With the oft'er, was the further one of the freedom of the 
Confederacy and passage on a blockade runner to Europe. He could 
have yielded to the temptation, so far as personal safety was con- 
cerned, but his stern faithfulness made him refuse the oft'er with 
indignation and contempt, and Wright paid the penalty of his crime. 

As the war progressed, the corps developed, and equipment for 
field work was perfected. General Grant, in writing of the latter, 
gives the following description : 

"Nothing could be more complete than the organization of this 
body of brave and intelligent men. Insulated wires, insulated so 
they could transmit messages in a storm, on the ground or under 
water, were wound upon reels, making about 200 pounds weight of 
wire to each reel, two men and one mule were detailed to each reel. 



41 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

The pack-sacldle on which this was carried was provided wuth a rack, 
like a saw-buck placed cross-wise of the saddle and raised above it 
so that the reel with its wire would revolve freely. There was a 
wagon supplied with a telegraph operator, battery and telegraph 
instruments to each division, each corps, each army, and one for my 
headquarters. There were wagons, also, loaded with light poles, 
about the size and length of a wall tent pole, supplied with an iron 
spike in one end, used to hold the wires up when laid, so that wagons 
and artillery would not run over them. The mules, thus loaded, 
were assigned to brigades and always kept to the command they were 
assigned to. The operators were also assigned to particular head- 
quarters, and never changed, except by special orders. The moment 
the troops were put into position to go into camp, the men connected 
with this branch of the service would proceed to put up their wires, 
A mule with a coil of Vv-ire would be led to the rear of the nearest 
flank of the brigade he belonged to, and would be led in a line parallel 
thereto, while one man would hold an end of the wire, and uncoil it 
as the mule was led oft". When he had walked the length of the 
wire, the whole of it would be on the ground. This would be done 
in the rear of every brigade at the same time. The ends of the wire 
would then be joined, making a continuous wire in the rear of the 
whole army. The men attached to brigades or divisions would all 
commence at once raising the wires with their telegraph poles. This 
was done by making a loop in the wire, putting it over the spike and 
raising the pole to a perpendicular position. At intervals the wire 
would be attached to trees or some other permanent object, so that one 
pole was sufficient at a place. In the absence of such a support, two 
poles would have to be used at intervals placed at an angle, so as to 
hold the wire firmly placed. While this was being done, the telegraph 
wagons would take their positions near where the headquarters they 
belonged to were established, and would connect with the wires. 
Thus, in a few minutes longer than it took a mule to walk the length 
of its coil telegraphic communication w^ould be established between 
all the headquarters of the army. No orders ever had to be given 
to establish the telegraph." 

It was not only in following up the army that the Telegraph 
Corps was of great utility, but in the very forefront of the battle did 
the Corps at times work the lines under the direct fire of the enemy, 
and many a secret scout was made within his lines to tap his wires anc! 
ascertain his movements, and just as secret a return and speedy report 

42 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

in person or cipher to the commanding general. As an ilkistration 
of the value of that service, two telegraph operators with General 
Rosecrans' army were in the enemy's country between Chattanooga 
and Richmond for thirty-three days tapping wires, and after repeated 
narrow escapes, returned to Nashville and reported. In the Depart- 
ment of the Gulf, army telegraphers blew two sunken gunboats and 
two other vessels out of the waters of the Bayou Tache ; and the 
success of ]\Iajor-General Stoneman's raid into AA^estern Virginia in 
December, 1864, was acknowledged by him to be "attributable in ri 
great degree to the information derived by his operator, E. T. Chap- 
man, from the rebel telegraph lines." 

General G. K. Warren in a letter wTote as follows : 
"I was intimately connected with the telegraph operators, and 
felt a kind interest in their faithful work and long vigils at their 
posts. I often talk with those who were with me of the operator 
who, in the iirst of our attacks on Petersburg, brought his wire to 
the front under musket range of the enem}-, and operated it behind a 
tree that proved to be hollow, and which any one of the cannon shot, 
which were at close range flying fast, would have gone clear through 
with little loss of force ; and again, one on the Weldon Railroad on 
the Sunday morning we were shelled out of it, both from the north 
and west, and who worked his recorder in the southeast angle and 
outside under the musketry fire that by its sound so near and the 
patterings of the balls around confused the records of his sounder; 
and many others on many other occasions. I have always felt a 
great deal of regard for their heroism.'' 

Among the many tributes, none finer have been paid the Corps 
and those of General Stager and the Compte-de-Paris, the former 
saying : 

"Follow the army where you will, there you will find the telegraph 
exercising its vigilance and its protection over the surrounding camp ; 
at the foremost pickets, in the rifl.e pits, and in the advance parallels, 
at any hour of the day or night, you can listen to the mysterious yet 
intellectual click of the telegraph instrument ; amidst the strife of 
battle and the wdiistling of bullets, its swift, silent messages pass mi- 
seen and unharmed." And the latter, in his History, recording: 
"Sufferings and dangers were not spared these men, whose merit 
was the greater in that it was less conspicuous. Alore than one 
amongst them, shivering with fever in an unhealthy station, lay down 
with his ear against the instrument to write with a trembling: hand. 



43 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

under dictation, some important dispatches, whose secret he would 
confide to no one. ]\Iany paid with their Hves for their boldness in 
setting- np their instruments under the very fire of the enemy, and 
one fact, almost incredible, bears testimony to the dangers to Avhich 
thev were exposed. During the siege of Charleston, the wire which 
connected the besieging batteries ran so close to the rifle pits of the 
Confederate skirmishers that it was frec^uently cut by their balls." 

The jMilitarv Telegraph eventually assumed colossal proportions 
and penetrating every portion of the Union where a Union soldier 
could be found, caused its delicate yet potent power to be felt and 
appreciated by every department of the Government. 

The boys constructed and operated within the lines of the army 
15,389 miles of telegraph and transmitted over 6,000,000 military 
telegrams. A large proportion of the latter was in secret cipher of 
the Government, the ke}s of which were solely in the possession of 
the operators. 

In the advance when the army Avas advancing, in the midst of 
l^attle and bringing up the rear in the army's retreat, the Corps left 
upon the battlefield, in the hospitals and war prisons, hundreds of its 
members, who were never restored to family, home and friends. 

Beginning at \ orktown, where poor Lathrop Avas killed by one 
of jMagruder's buried torpedoes, from East to W'est, and from North 
to South, as our armies marched and fought, until the Nation's cause 
was won at Appoiuattox, almost every field, almost every march, 
numbered one of the telegraph boys among the fallen. 

A hundred nameless graves throughout the battlefields of the 
Union, attest their devotion unto death to the sublime cause in 
which they were engaged, and yet the government they loved and 
labored for never as much as thanked them for their services ! 

Every nation, ours among the number, operates a jNIilitary Tele- 
graph, and yet, before the Civil War in the United States, such an 
arm of the service was practically unknown. It was reserved for 
mere boys — American boys — to inaugurate that arm of the service 
demonstrate its value in actual war, and for so doing become the 
recipients of the monumental ingratitude of the Nineteenth century ! 

My own experience as a military telegrapher was varied. After 
organizing the telegraph service at Harrisburg, I joined Colonel 
Scott in Wasliington on the 3rd of May, and became Manager of the 
IMilitary Telegraph ofiice in the War Department, from Avhich vantage 
ground many of the innermost secrets and actions of the Administra- 

44 



THE TELECxRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

tion of public affairs, both civil and military, became known to me, 
Mr. Lincoln was a constant visitor to the office both during the hours 
of the day and night, keeping the finger of one hand on the pulse of 
the country, whilst v/ith the forefinger of the other he pointed out the 
roads for the army to take. I saw him on many occasions when the 
skies were overcast and many friends of the country were yielding to 
despair. I was with him at the time the "Harriet Lane" ran the 
enemy's batteries on the lower Potomac, during the first battle of Bull 
Run, the disaster at Ball's Bluff, the capture of Alason and Slidell, 
and other trying periods in those days of blood. One of the most 
trying was on Sunday, the 9th of March, 1862. News of the rebel 
ram "Merrimac" having come out of the James river, sunk the "Cum- 
berlan.d," 1)urnt the "Congress" and grounded the "!\Iinnesota," "St, 
Lawrence" and "Roanoke" reached us via boat from Fortress 
Monroe to Cape Charles, thence by wire. In person I apprised the 
President and Secretary of the Navy Welles of the disaster. Imme-* 
diately they came to the War Department Telegraph Office, which 
was then located on the entresol oft" the landing separating two flights 
of stairs between the first and second stories in the old War Depart- 
ment building. It was an anxious morning. The supposition was 
that the victorious "Alerrimac," having nothing to oppose it, would 
reduce Fortress Alonroe, make its way up the Potomac, and bombard 
Washington. Captain Dahlgren, then Commandant at the Navy 
Yard, was sent for and brought into consultation. He advised load- 
ing canal boats with stone and sinking them in the shallowest part of 
the Potomac channel, which was at Cuttle Fish Shoals. His sugges- 
tions were being carried into execution when the glorious achieve- 
ment of the "Monitor" was flashed over the wires, relieving the 
tension and turning gloom into joy. Mr. Lincoln, throughout that 
whole trying da}', when the loss of the capital seemed reasonably sure, 
lost not a particle of faith in the cause and its ultimate success, but 
remained the cool, clear-headed adviser he always was when thg 
clouds were the darkest. 

This sea fight recalls the bravery of an operator by the name of 
George D. Cowlam, a detailed member of "Ellsworth's Fire 
Zouaves," who was operator at Newport News. During the first 
day's conflict he gave momentary reports as to its progress to General 
Wool, at Fortress ^Monroe, where little John E. O'Brien, then only 
fourteen years of age, was military operator. Cowlam described 
each phase of the conflict, whilst shells whistled all around him, two 

45 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

tearing through his office, and }et his nerve never forsook him, and 
he remained faithful at the l<ey, l<eeping the authorities advised. 
Right here memor}- calls up a side view of Mr. Lincoln rarely seen. 
An alarm from one of the border State Governors, probably Morton, 
of Indiana, sent me hurriedly to the Executive Mansion to convey 
its substance to the President. He did not seem to be at all disturbecj 
by it, possiblv from the fact that border alarms, or, as he quaintly 
termed them, "border skeers," were so frequent that the keen edge 
of the anxiety produced by them had long since been worn off. The 
one in question he considered of sufficient importance to cause him 
to return with me to the War Department for the purpose of having 
a "wire talk"" with the ]:>erturbed Governor. Calling one of his two 
younger bovs to join him we three started from the White House, 
between stately trees along a gravel path, which led to the rear of the 
old War Department building. It was a warm day and Mr. Lincoln 
wore as part of his costume a faded gray linen duster which hung 
loosely around his long gaunt frame ; his kindly eye was beaming 
with good nature and his ever thoughtful brow was unruffled. We 
had barely reached the gravel walk before he stooped over, picked up 
a round, smooth pebble and shooting it off his thumb, challenged us 
to a game of "followings," which we accepted. Each in turn tried to 
hit the outlying stone which was constantly being projected onward 
by the President. The game was short but exciting ; the cheerfulness 
of childhood, the ambition of young manhood and the gravity of the 
statesman were all injected into it. The game was not won until 
the steps of the ^^'ar Department were reached. Every inch of pro- 
gression was toughly contested and when the President was declared 
victor it was only by a hand span. He appeared to be as much 
pleased as if he had won a battle, and softened the defeat of the van- 
cjuished by attributing his success to his greater height of person and 
longer reach of arm. 

An occurrence in the Secretary of War's office during the Mason 
and Slidell incident illustrates the intensity of the feeling in the 
country relative to the seizure of those gentlemen. \Mien the tele- 
gram reciting the action of Captain Wilkes was handed to the 
Secretary of War a number of prominent men were with him. The 
reading of the dispatch called forth loud, boisterous and prolonged 
applause from all present with the exception of a calm, dignified 
Senator. \Anien the noise had subsided sufficiently for him to be 
heard, he said quietly: "Gentlemen, this means an apology and repa- 

46 



THE TFXEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

ration to Great Britain or war with that country. We have one 
war on onr hands and cannot undertake another at this time.'' Tc 
which the Secretary warmly responded: "Hang ]\Iason and SHdell 
first and apologize to Great Britain afterwards." The Secretary re- 
flected the prevalent unreasoning public sentiment of the time, but 
j\Ir. Lincoln's cool judgment being along the lines of the Senator's 
thought he pursued the policy he had determined upon from the first 
as the right one to pursue and surrendered the prisoners. Alason 
and Slidell were only dangerous in confinement under the circum- 
stances for as soon as they were freed they became perfectly harm- 
less. 

The creation of a public sentiment abroad through the foreign 
press was entrusted to some of the ablest and most astute American 
writers. I\lr. Sam Wilkinson of the "New York Tribune" was one 
of the chief of these. Among his duties was rounding up the whole 
foreign news correspondence by placing the last budget containing 
the latest semi-ofticial news from Washington on the outgoing 
steamers. After the steamers had left port with their mails, con- 
taining advices from our Government to its European representa- 
tives, from the resident foreign representatives to their home govern- 
ments, with newspaper, commercial and social correspondence made 
up to the last moment, Mr. Wilkinson would be made aware of the 
fact and then he would repair to the War Department telegraph and 
prepare his budget. Mr. Seward, or some other cabinet official, 
would occasionally drop in on him and now and then throw out 
suggestions to him as he wrote. These dispatches were made up to 
shade reports of events already mailed, or give a new interj^retation 
to them, and were telegraphed to a dispatch boat by which they were 
conveyed to the steamer when off Caj^e Race and became on the other 
side the "Latest Intelligence from the United States." 

In the summer of 1862 I returned to Harrisburg, and resumed 
my position on the Pennsylvania Railroad as its General Lost Car 
Agent. After the defeat of Pope under the walls of Washington, 
Pennsylvania was left open to invasion, and the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road to attack. I re-entered the field. With a pocket relay and a 
coil of fine helix wire for opening up telegraphic communication 
whenever convenient and practicable, I joined Captain William J. 
Palmer (also a Pennsylvania Railroad man) in a scouting expedition 
down the Cumberland A'alley, entering the enemy's lines, moving on 
his flanks, ascertaining his numbers, and reporting frequently to the 

47 



THE TELECxRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

authorities. 'My offices as opened, were improvised from fence rails, 
tree stumps or crevices in decayed trees ; from these, however, I 
was able to give the Government officials the first information 
relative to the fall of Harper's Ferry, the fight at Boonsboro Pass of 
the South Mountain and the evacuation of Hagerstown by Long- 
street. The enemy threatened Greencastle, and the few troops we 
had there departed, leaving me with two scouts as the sole garrison. 
Taking position on a hand-car, I put my instrument in circuit and 
flying the American flag over the town, I bid defiance to the enemy. 
and from my unique office kept the authorities advised of his move- 
ments. The combination of Palmer and myself was the medium 
of information which enabled Governor Curtin to guide McClellan's 
armv in the Antietam campaign. In the Gettysburg campaign, Ear- 
ly's raid, and at the time Chambersburg was burned, I did service of 
a similar character. Frequently in the Valley the enemy passed 
northward around me whilst I was concealed^n the woods, with 
my instrument in circuit. I kept up communication by apparently 
tearing down the telegraph line for some distance, but being careful 
to keep it from contact with the ground, and running my fine silk- 
covered wire through the grass to a hiding place among the trees. 

Harrisburg was my headquarters, where I kept myself ready to 
respond to all calls made upon me by JNIr. Scott. The slightest dust 
raised by the enemy in the Shenandoah Valley would be met by an 
order from him to me to proceed to the Potomac and keep him 
advised of all movements. Many and man\' a time in the dark hours 
of the night I have been awakened from my sleep and ordered 
"down the valley." and taking a locomotive, made the echoes ring 
with its speedy run to Hagerstown. From there I would send out 
my trusted scouts, and by daylight have jMr. Scott advised of the 
situation. Sometimes the enemy would drive me out of the town,, 
and then would ensue an interesting race between an operator on a 
hand-car and a soldier on a horse, in which bullets, oaths, hopes and 
fears seemed to mix in great confusion. 

Again, the enemy would appear before I could arrange m}' toilet 
for leaving, and I would be compelled to remain and enjoy his com- 
pany as best I could, never forgetting, however, to make notes on 
my m.ental tablets of such things as I thought would prove interesting 
to Colonel Scott. Once, General Jenkins' cavalry drove me out of 
Mechanicsburg, and pursued me as long as the common road waj? 
close to the railroad, and whilst the bullets came uncomfortably 

48 



THE TELEGRAPH IN PEACE AND WAR. 

near and imbedded themselves in my hand-car, I passed on unharmed. 
On another occasion, General Fitz Hugh Lee broke up my office, 
located in a fence corner about a mile north of Carlisle, causing me 
to draw into that ancient borough and enjoy, with General William 
F. Smith, the sensations of a boml^ardment. With the ground or a 
friendly hayrick for a couch, sleep impossible, hunger gnawing, 
danger of capture always imminent, and death ever present, the 
service was never an easy or agreeable one, and its performance was 
only sustained by the consciotisness that it was right. 

This personal narration is given to show what kind of service 
some telegraph operators were called upon to perform during the 
Civil War. There is a charm to me in looking back upon the days 
of my telegraphic career and calling to memory the comradeship 
of those who manipulated the key. The telegraph operator of the 
6o's was a force in the community. He was proud of himself, proud 
of his profession, and to use the language of my old friend, Lew 
Somers, of Cleveland : 

"There was an esprit de corps which held him up to a high 
standard, lest he bring dishonor on the good name of the profession, 
and upon his compeers whose good opinion he valued.. There was 
a bond of brotherhood which required no vows to make it strong. 
The mystic chord which botmd them so closely together in good fel- 
lowship perhaps had its birth in the mystic and subtle fluid which 
brings those afar off into close personal touch. Its subtle charm is 
felt now as it was then, and will ever hold in closest fellowship the 
true brotherhood of telegraphers." 

"What hath God wrought ?" 





49 



WARFARE. 



\\'arfare is not confined to contending forces going forth armed 
with guns to kiU and to conqner. There are other armies, who. with 
more peaceful weapons, march to succor and to save. In this latter 
class is the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's Grand Division of 
America's splendid Army of Railroad Men. which, in the memorable 
period from the nth to the i6th of February, 1898, marched with 
unexcelled fortitude and battled Avith heroic spirit intent on conquer- 
ing the terrible foe which Nature, in one of her angry moods, had 
hurled at this part of the earth. The avalanche of snow that tumbled 
from the mountains of the sky, fanned by the wild and icy winds, 
fell athwart the lines of communication over which multitudes of 
people drew their dail}' supplies, and challenged the stotitest hearts 
of man to combat. The Pennsylvania Railroad forces did not hesi- 
tate a moment in picking up the gauntlet, and with their lives in peril, 
in going forth to meet the foe. With limbs benimibed and blood 
chilled by the zero weather, the Avinds at times almost prostrating 
them, but with the knoAvlege that the supplying of food to stistain the 
lives of hundreds of thousands of their fellow-men depended upon 
their exertions, they dauntlessly presented a bold.brave and imited 
front, and went into the strife determined to win. Hundreds of miles 
of huge snow fortifications, with their outlying works drifted in^o 
frozen masses were gallantly assaulted and heroically carried — the 
army advancing, never retreating, until the last obstacle to its succes =- 
ful march was razed, and the day had been won. 

The storm and its results, which these men combatted and con- 
quered, was declared by the ^^"eather Bureau at W^ashington to be 
"the greatest in the history of the Atlantic Coast States," and vet 
the people who were succored from its terrors never thought of mak- 
ing the day upon which the conquering heroes returned a gala da\-. 
Business quarters were not decorated with gaily colored bunting, 
banners were not throAvn to the breeze, cities were not illuminated 
to add brilliancy to the rejoicings of the night; leagues, clubs and 
societies thought not of banquets, speeches, swords and medals to- 
commemorate brave deeds ; legislative halls did not resound with ora- 



50 



WARFARE. 

tory over the achievements of the returned heroes. It is a singular 
trait in human nature that such evidences of appreciation should be 
reserved for the men of blood, for svirely the more honors granted 
to the heroes of peace would supply less inspiration to create those 
of bloodshed. It is an inspiring thotight that the Storm King who 
had defeated Napoleon's Imperial Army of France, was defeated by 
the Army of the Pennsylvania Railroad when he turned his wrath 
upon the ptirsuits of peace. To which army should the greater 
honor be accorded is a question which requires no discussion to de- 
cide in favor of the latter. The one, created to destroy, failed ; the 
other, organized to build up, succeeded. 

Citizens of the United States rightly honor the manhood which, 
tmder the scorching rays of the tropical sim, concjuered the proud. 
Spanish nation ; but it is not to their credit to allow deeds of as 
sterling a manhood as ever stood behind a gmi to pass by unnoticed. 
The "'men behind the ginis" when engaged in a righteous cause are 
patriotic figures to praise and appreciate, but they are not more 
heroic and do not exhibit a higher standard of citizenship than the 
men behind the shovels and the throttle levers, or the men at the 
brakes and on the footboards, platforms and bridges. These railroac* 
men, wdien the action was over, quietly returned to their homes, rich 
in their consciousness of duty well performed, and the approval and 
appreciation of the railroad management. Around their firesides, 
as they dwelt in retrospection on the experiences they had had, the 
dangers and fatigues encountered, they did not have occasion to blush 
for any discordant sotmds of discontent or inimanly clamor for un- 
attainable ileshpots, for none were heard during the campaign and 
subsequently, as they viewed the aftermath, no panorama of courts- 
martial, heart-liurnings, jealousies, intrigues, crimes and scandals 
passed before their eyes, for the scene was a placid one of renewed 
prosperity, due to open communications restored by their labors. 



51 



BLACK DICK 




Judystown, at the corner of Third street and ^Meadow lane, 
Harrisburg, just where the Cumberland \"alley Railroad leaves 
Mulberry street by a graceful curve, was a colored quarter over 
whose destinies Edward, otherwise "King"," I'ennett presided. The 
"King" was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, a close reader, 
and a clear de1)ator. He was a man of splendid physique, indomi- 
table will and autocratic rule. In this autocracy, in a little cabii^ 
dwelt Rosa Smith and her son Richard. Day l)y day through 
cracked and grimy windows the child watched the railroad trains 
as they passed in front of the cabin door. It was his one occupation 
and entertainment, and his mind being intently bent in that direction 
a love for the locomotive as sincere and as ardent as that for an 



52 



BLACK DICK. 

individual soon developed within and took possession of him. Men- 
tallv clothing- the machine with human attributes, he sought its closest 
acquaintance, and one morning in 1856 emerging from the cabin, 
cautiously crossing the Cumberland A'alley. and then the Harrisburg 
and Lancaster tracks, he made his way to the half roundhouse and 
machine shop, which was situated between the Mulberry street 
bridge and the present Pennsylvania Railroad Storage House, to 
see how his new friends lived at home. 

From that moment visiting the round house and locomotives 
became a passion with him, and no power could keep him away from 
them. He made the close acquaintance of all the locomotives run- 
ning in and out of Harrisburg, became their self-appointed guardian, 
crooned to them, patted, petted, commended and scolded them. 
When an engine left the shop upon being repaired Dick would 




DICK'S WHISTLE. 

compliment it on its appearance, and admonish it to take good care 
of itself and not get dirty or broken. He acquired such an intimate 
knowledge of his friends that he could distinguish them by their 
whistles or bells. He would scold the engineers and firemen in charge 
if they were not kept clean and in good condition, and he seemed 
to know^ intuitively when a nut was loose or a bolt missing. This 
demand for cleanliness in the locomotive was not a freakish sug- 
gestion, for cleanliness was a religion with him from which he never 
departed. As applied to himself in practice he took a bath daily 
either in the canal or river, breaking the ice in winter to take it. It 
was this habit which eventually caused his death. The building of 
the new shops and roundhouse in the western part of Harrisburg, 
and the tearing down of the old ones, was the cause of the keenest 
grief to Dick. He thought it was a practical divorce of him and his 
beloved locomotives and some days passed before he became recon- 
ciled to the change. \Mien he did, he changed his visiting place 



53 



BLACK DICK. 

from the shops to the passenger station, at which point he thereafter 
received his locomotives on their inbound trips, or sent them out- 
bound with a cheery God-speed. His field now broadened, and he 
became acquainted with the Cumberland A'alley Railroad and Xorth- 
ern Central Railway engines. There was one peculiarity he dis- 
played in connection with some of the latter — no money could tempt 
him to board one destined to Baltimore, for he asserted that if he did 
so he would be carried into slaverv. Running,- in and out of the 




DICK CLEARING THE TRACK. 

passenger station alongside of the locomotives opened up to 
him a humane field for his acti-^itics, and he beca,me a self-ap- 
pointed life saver. The railroad situation at Harrisburg was more 
or less dangerous. The Pennsylvania Railroad station v.-as on 
Meadow lane, the front facing Avest was about 150 feet east of J^.Iarket 
street ; the station extending to Chestnut street. Some of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad trains ran in and out of the station, whilst others 
received and discharged their passengers on the track on the south 
side of the building-: the Xortliern Central used the street tracks at 



54 



BLACK DICK. 

and near Fifth street, and the Cumberland Valley those closer to 
Chestnut street. At noon time the bustle was greatest, the coming 
and going of trains, the interchange of passengers and baggage, the 
crossing of tracks by the multitude, the narrow escapes and the 
general hurry scurry caused wide confusion whereby trains were 
missed, and the timid almost thrown into convulsions. It was this 
confusion tliat suggested to Dick that some one should see to the 
safety of the public in crossing the tracks, and he immediately con- 
secrated himself to the task, and then above the din of the hurrying 
crowd, the clanging Ijell and ruml)ling train, his warning call was 
heard, as, with body thrown forward, his long arms waving in the 
air like the wings of a windmill, he ran along the ties but a few feet 
in advance of the locomotive keeping the tracks clear of all human 
obstacles. For years he did this, never tiring, never faltering in 
his labor of love. It seemed every instant as he ran as if he must 
trip and fall to be ground to pieces under the fast moving train. 
Thousands upon thousands of travellers knew him and looked upon 
him as a public benefactor, and hundreds were saved from maiming 
or death by his watchful care. James Richardson, in his sketch 
"Travelling by Telegraph," whicli appeared in Scribner for ^lay, 
1872, described him "as a wild looking son of Ham sweeping down 
the track, hustling men and women right and left, clearing the way 
for the locomotive, now dashing for^^■ard to shoulder from the rails 
some heedless loiterer, now falling" into a reckless dog trot scarcely 
a foot ahead of the cow catcher." From the time he began this duty 
he absented himself but once, and then he '\\-as prevailed upon to 
accompany the Friendship Fire Company, of Harrisburg, to join in 
a fireman's parade at Altoona. During his absence a little child was 
killed at the Alarket street crossing, and he never ceased charging his 
absence with the catastrophe, and lamenting that he had permitted 
himself to be overpersuaded. He had no companions, no intimates. 
The influences of an approaching train arousing him into splendid 
activity would impel him enthusiastically to the spot of greatest 
danger. The moment the train had passed his care would pass with 
it, and he becoming indifferent to his surroundings would shuffle 
along seemingly lost in his whistle. ]\Ir. Richard L. Head. Chiei 
Clerk in the Superintendent's office, looked after his interests, saw 
that he was properly clothed, and that no one abused him: whilst 
]\Ir. John \A'. Hutchison, proprietor of the Station Cafe, fed him. 
His brief, brave and glorious career, during which with a sublime 

55 



BLACK DICK. 

faith he perilled his own life to succor others, came suddenl}- to a 
close at lo o'clock on Saturday morning, July 6, 1872. The day \\ as 
very warm, and he had been more than usually active. A^ was his 
custom, he made his daily plunge in the canal. The hear of the day 
and the sudden phmge was too much even for his robiist constitu- 
tion, and he only reached the station platform to die from shock. His 
death was mourned wherever he was known, for this child of iiituie, 
homely, awkward and untutored, by his unselfish love for mankind 
had won man's love and appreciation. 

His obseqtiies took place on Sunday afternoon, Julv 7. at 5 
o'clock. The body, clad in a suit of black clothes, placed in a liaud- 
some walnut coffin, laid in state in the station in the rear of the 
baggage room, guarded by a colored military company — "J he JjIuc 
Mountain Sharpshooters," Captain Thomas Hyers. The scr\-ices 
were conducted by the Rev. C. J- Carter, of the \A''esley Union 
Methodist Church. He delivered his eulogy from the little balcony 
just off from the Superintendent's office, inside the station. It was 
impassioned, touching and eloquent. After the services the coffin 
was closed and placed in the hearse and taken to the colored cemetcrv 
for interment. The railroad officials at Harrisburg in a number of 
carriages and omnibusses followed the remains to their final resting 
place, whilst a concourse of people, estimated at 5,000, showed the 
same respect by following on foot. 

James A. AMlson, then a clerk in the office of the General Super- 
intendent, Xorthern Central Railway, Harrisburg, gave expression 
of his and his fellow railroad men's appreciation of Dick's life and 
character in the following : — 

"DICK." 



'There she comes look out here now. 

And the voice rings loud and clear, 

As down the track a figure comes 

Shapeless and void of fear. 

His restless e3'e sees every form ; 

Be woman, man or waif. 

And seeks a noble work to do, 

To render travelers safe. 

He grasps a trembling woman's arm, 

And saves her from a fate 



56 



BLACK DICK. 

Far worse than death's cold, clammy grasp, 

Or Satan's dreaded hate. 

A tottering form of hoary age 

Is rescued by his arm; 

And off he starts e'er thanks be said, 

To others save from harm. 

The old, the young, the rich and poor, 

All know his value when 

Before a swiftly passing train 

He proves a safeguard then. 

II. 

But now his voice is stilled in death. 

Freed, too, his form from pain. 

The ear is dead to all around. 

And every passing train. 

Then lay him down, and gently, too. 

For the good of his simple life 

So full of acts and noble deeds. 

As wrought of dangers rife. 

His work is done, and nobly, too; 

God bless that simple heart. 

That proved a friend to man and beast, 

And nobly played his part. 

God bless you, Dick, we each one say. 

While the soul its echo cries, 

And take the wearied spirit home. 

Yea, home beyond the skies. 

Withoitt escutcheon or family tree, reared in no palace, ttitored 
in no tmiversity, thus lived and died one of nature's noblemen. He 
did his duty to his fellow-man, commanding respect in life, and 
sincere mournino- in death. 



57 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



The twenty-second of February is observed as the anniversary 
of the birth of one wliom Edward Everett said was, "the greatest 
of good men and the best of great men," and upon whose death at 
the close of the i8th century the whole world sincerely mourned. 
English admiration almost equalling American love in the strength 
of its expression of sorrow. The military prowess and political 
wisdom of Washington were the qualities wdiich called forth the 
universal regret at his demise, and it is not singular that we of this 
generation in our moments of hero worship or patriotic inspiration 
look for him in the uniform of the soldier or the garb of the states- 
man. And yet there is a greater A\'ashington — and one to be found 
in the biographies of the man, citizen, neighbor and' Christian. None 
should attempt to lessen the glories of his public achievements, for 
in their mirror is reflected the liberties of the people, but at the same 
time all should study his character as displayed in private life to ses 
those grander qualities based upon Faith, Hope and Charity which 
emphasized his unofficial career. 

To stay the populace which was gathering in the Mississippi 
Valley from bowling before the blandishment of European govern- 
ments, and to bind it to the Republic on the Atlantic seaboard, and 
to open up and foster an internal commerce for the benefit of his 
neighbors, he advocated strongly a series of public improvements 
to unite the Ohio River to the Chesapeake Bay. Knowing and 
feeling that the easier the means of communication between far 
separated sections the greater would be the advancement of religion 
and virtue, and consequently that of a pure democracy, he also 
projected canals for the development of Mrginia and led the wav to 
the wonderful internal improvements wdiose advantages and facilities 
are being enjoyed to-day by a people brave, proud, rich and intelli- 
gent, the fruitage from the liberty tree he planted and nourished. 

Washington, thoughtful of and for others, while maintaining 
a military reserve, was ever kindly. \\'ith an abundance of means 
he was extremely careful of the small expenditures, putting daily 
into practice the familiar aphorism, "Take care of the pence and 

58 




GEORGE WASHINGTON, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

the pounds will take care of themselves." He was his own almoner 
in the county in which he lived, and bestowed his charities with 
extreme judiciousness. To the appeals of the poor who called upon 
him for aid he never turned a deaf ear, and to more readily dis- 
pense his charities, so that none should go away from his doors 
empty-handed, he kept upon his estate a large granary filled with 
corn, a smoke house with meat, and boats to reach his fisheries. 

Exact in all things, he was extremely so in his religious de- 
votions, habitually opening and closing the day with prayer in his 
closet. Among the many valuable writings from his pen that have 
come down to us, and act as guides to our actions now, none are 
more precious than the forms of prayer he w^rote for his own use. 
Among them is his daily sacrifice for Sunday morning, as fol- 
lows : — 

•'Almighty God and most merciful father, who didst command 
the children of Israel to offer a daily sacrifice to thee, that thereby 
thev might glorify and praise thee for thy protection both night and 
dav ; receive O Lord, my morning sacrifice which I now oft'er up to 
thee. I vield thee humble and hearty thanks that thou has preserved 
me from the dangers of the night past, and brought me to the light 
of this day and the comforts thereof, a day which is consecrated to 
thine own service and for thine own honour. Let my heart, there- 
fore, gracious God. be so aft'ected with the glory and majesty of it 
that I may not do mine own works, but wait on thee, and dis- 
charge those weighty duties thou require of me ; and since thou art 
a God of pure eyes, and wilt be sanctified in all who draw near unto 
thee, who dost not regard the sacrifice of fools nor hear sinners who 
tread in thy courts, pardon, I beseech thee, my sins, remove them 
from thy presence as far as the east is from the west, and accept of 
me, for the merits of thy son, Jesus Christ, that when I come into 
thy temple, and compass thine altar, my prayer may come before 
thee as incense. And as I desire thou wouldst hear me calling upon 
thee in my prayers, so give me grace to hear thee calling on me in thy 
word, that it may be wisdom, righteousness, reconciliation & peace 
to the saving of my soul in the day of the Lord Jesus. Grant that 
I may hear it with reverence, receive it with meekness, mingle it 
Avith faith, and that it may accomplish in me. Gracious God, the 
good work for which thou has sent it. Bless my family, kindred, 
friends and country, be our God & guide this day and forever for 

6r 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

his sake who lay down in the grave and arose again for ns, Jesus 
Christ, our Lord, Amen." 

That is a fervent prater of a righteous man, and no matter what 
fauks he may have had, what sins of omission or commission can be 
laid at his door, it shows more than any of his writings or his acts, 
the strength and depth of his religion, and his reliance upon the 
Almighty. At the same time it unfolds the true secret of his great- 
ness and success, and accounts for his never-ending growth in the 
loving admiration of the hiunan family. 

General Washington at Trenton and Yorktown appeals to our 
chivalry and martial spirit ; President Washington in the vestments 
of office to our patriotism ; ]\Ir. Washington at home to our pride 
of citizenship ; but George Washington on bended knee in prayer 
to Almighty God is an inspiration to high and holy things ! 




62 



BATTLE OF BALTIMORE AND THE 
STAR SPANGLED BANNER. 



On those September days in 1814, when Bakimore was threat- 
ened bv a foreign foe, the sons of Maryland and Pennsylvania, freshly 
gathered from the fields, workshops and counting houses, by their 
sturdy valor won from the Nations inured to arms a high and unre- 
served respect for the citizen soldiers of America. The lessons 
taught bv the Revolution had been so badly learned abroad that the 
soldiers of FZurope looked upon the American arms as being vastly 
inferior to their own. It required the defence of Baltimore to 
undeceive them and to make them realize that an independent Nation 
of freem.en were able to maintain their rights, whether in peace or 
war. A century has almost elapsed since those days, yet the scenes 
then enacted upon the Patapsco continue to inspire emotions of 
patriotism and National pride in the American heart. The work 
so well begun at Baltimore was fittingly completed at New Orleans 
with the pride of Wellington humbled. 

The story of the British repulse at Baltimore can never become 
old so long as "The Star Spangled Banner" is sung. That National 
ballad, however, tells only one part of the story. Francis Scott Key, 
its author, was so circumstanced that he could only see the defence 
of Fort McHenry, the heroic movements of the military on land 
being obscured from his view. Those movements were well or- 
dered, and fruitful of results, as wdll be seen as a hasty glimpse is 
taken of them. 

After the British hatl committed their vandalism at Washington, 
and conducted their unchallenged campaign of pillage and arson in 
the Potomac and Patuxent regions, they set sail for Baltimore on 
the iTth of September, 1814. The defence of that city was being" 
ably looked after by Major-General Samuel Smith, who had gathered 
an army of citizen soldiery to resist the invasion. Upon September 
II, 1 8 14, the Sunday that the enemy set sail for the city. General 
Smith marched his advanced corps to meet and engage him in case 
of his landing. That corps, under John Strieker. Brigadier General 
commanding the Third Brigade of [Nlarvland Militia, consisted of 



THE BATTLE OF BALTniORE. 

3,150 men, and was composed of the 5th, 6th, 27th, 39th and 51st 
jMarvland reg-iments, 150 rifle-men under Captain Dyer, 140 cav- 
ah-y under Lieutenant-Colonel Biays, and the Union Artillery, 75 
men, and six four-pounders under Captain ]\Iontgomery. These 
men were all citizen soldiers of Baltimore, with the exception of 
the company of York, Penna., A'olunteers, under Captain ^Michael 
H. Spangler, attached to the 5th, the Hanover, Penna., and the 
Hagerstown, Maryland, A^olunteers, attached to the 39th Maryland. 
His line of march was out the main North Point Road. He halted 
at 8 p. m. at a point seven miles beyond the city, near the head of 
Bear Creek. He then pushed his rifle-men two miles, and his 
cavalry three miles in advance. During the night the British arrived 
ofl: the mouth of the Patapsco, within two miles of shore, and on the 
morning of the 12th, at three o'clock, began to land at Xorth Point. 
Their forces were all on shore by 7 a. m., at which hour they began 
their line of march. General Strieker was advised of the enemy's 
debarkation and movement, and immediately made dispositions to 
meet him. The 5th and 27th regiments of infantry and the artillery 
were moved forward to the head of Longlog Lane, the 5th resting its 
right on the head of a branch of Bear Creek, and its left on the main 
North Point Road. The 27th was posted on the opposite side of the 
road in line with the 5lh, its left extending towards a branch of Back 
River, and the artillery was placed in position at the head of the lane, 
in the interval between the 5th and 27th. The 39th covered the 27th. 
and the 51st the 5th, three hundred yards in the rear, whilst the 6th 
was held in reserve a half mile behind the second line. 

The British column, under the command of General Ross, con- 
sisted of 4,000 troops of all arms, with 1,000 marines and sailors 
in a naval battalion added. They carried three days' cooked pro- 
visions, and eighty rounds of ammunition. Their personal baggage 
was reduced to a blanket, an extra shirt and an extra pair of shoes, 
as it was the intention of General Ross to carry the city by a coup 
dc niaiii. The advance was led by the Light Brigade under Major 
Jones, who Avas supported by six field pieces and two howitzers, all 
drawn b}- horses. Then followed the Second Brigade, and the 
Naval Battalion, the I'hird Brigade bringing up the rear. About 
8 o'clock the advance halted at a partly completed breastwork, 
hastily thrown u}) b\- the American cavalry ])icket, and remained 
inactive until about nine o'clock, when the balance of the command 
havin.g been brought up. the march was resumed. They had only 

66 



THE BATTLE OF BALTDIORE. 

proceeded a mile when they encountered a reconnoitering party 
thrown out bv General Strieker. This party, numbering 370 men, 
was under the command of ^lajor Heath of the 5th ^vlaryland Vol- 
unteers, and was composed of Levering's and Howard's companies 
of that regiment, Asquith's and a few other riflemen, the cavalry 
and one four-pounder, under Lieutenant Stiles. A skirmish took 
place, during which the British commander, General Ross, lost his 
life. The miexpected stiffness of the American resistance was a 
complete surprise to their opponents, who halted for several hours 
before thev recovered sufficienth- to resume their march. About 
half-past two o'clock, they came upon Strieker's line of battle, and 
an engagement immediately ensued. 

The American position was well wooded, covered by a neck 
of land and flanked on each side by ponds of water. As soon as the 
British came in range a galling fire with telling effect was poured 
upon them, under which they moved into line of battle, with the 
85th regiment, the light companies and the other corps extended 
over the ^vhole American front, the 44th regiment, and the naval 
"battalion supporting. The 4th regiment was deployed to the right 
to turn the American left, whilst the 21st regiment remained in col- 
umn on the road. Whilst the formation was being made a brisk 
cannonade was kept up by the Americans with two light field pieces, 
doing considerable execution upon the 21st regiment and the sailors, 
whilst three other light pieces, directed against the artillery, and 
the balance of the American artillery upon the 85th regiment, did 
considerable execution. The Americans deployed their infantry with 
great skill, and concentrated its left, right or centre as the exigencies 
of battle demanded. The 4th regiment having reached the position 
from which it was to turn the American left, the whole British force 
made a charge upon the American position. They were met with an 
artillery fire until within 100 yards of the American line, when a 
brisk musketr^- fire was opened upon them, volley succeeding volley 
wdth deadly eff'ect. The 21st regiment was advanced on the extreme 
left, and was met with such a gallant resistance by the 27th and 
part of the 39th Maryland that it was driven back. General 
Strieker fought his ground stubbornly for an hour and twenty 
minutes, when the 51st regiment having given w^ay and exposed 
his left flank, he fell back on his reserves, and reformed his lines. 
The enemy not following, he again fell back to Worthington's Mill, 
.a half-mile in advance of Major-General Smith's intrenchments, 

67 



THE BATTLE OF BALTIMORE. 

and to their left. The loss of the day was : Americans, 21 killed and 
189 wounded and prisoners ; British, 40 killed, 229 wounded. 

The British slept upon the field. About midnight a heavy rain 
came up, drenching- both armies and making the roads almost impas- 
sable. Just as day was about to dawn on the 13th, the British force 
moved to the road and took up their order of march towards the 
citv. It was slow, cautious, almost timorous. Trees had been felled 
across the roads for a distance of several miles, which greatly re- 
tarded their advance. When they came upon the main body of the 
Americans entrenched, they paused, and after studying the position, 
saw that defeat stared them in the face if they attempted to attack 
without the assistance of the fleet. The fleet had not been inactive, 
but Fort AIcHenry, aided by the land batteries, proved too formidable. 
The fleet, under Admiral Cockburn. had gathered on the morning 
of the 13th and formed a half circle around Fort ^IcHenry and out 
of range of its guns. It kept up a continuous bombardment from 
6 a. m to 3 p. m., after which it drew nearer the fort for more 
effectual work, but coming within reach of the American guns,, 
Major Armistead, in command of the fort, opened up such a destruc- 
tive fire upon it, that it withdrew to a safe distance and continued 
its attack at its previous range. At midnight Admiral Cockburn 
sent out a barge expedition with 1,200 men, to make its way up the 
cove for the purpose of landing the force in the rear of the fort and 
carrying it by assault. The guns from the fort and the land batteries 
repulsed the expedition, causing it to retreat under the cover of dark- 
ness and rejoin the fleet. The fleet continued to bombard the fort 
until six o'clock on the morning of the 14th. when it retired. When 
it was seen that the fleet could not aid the land forces in their effort 
to reach the city and its booty, a council of war was held, at which 
it was decided that safety alone lay in withdrawal. It was deemed 
prudent to hasten the withdrawal of the troops and to return to the 
shipping. The retreat began at three o'clock on the morning of 
the 14th, under cover of the fleet's final bombardment of the fort, 
and continued until the early morning of the 15th, at which time 
they had reached their shipping, and began their re-embarkation. 

Thus closed one of the most momentous incidents in American 
history, wherein citizen soldiery, inspired by love of country antt 
the defense of their firesides, proved able to compete with and practi- 
cally overcome veteran troops and sailors trained to wai' in the 
severe Eurojjcan schools of experience. 

68 



THE BATTLE OF BALTniORE. 

^^'l^ilst the Hritish fleet was in the Potomac, Francis Scott Key 
went on board under a flag of truce, in an endeavor to secure the re- 
lease bv exchange of some American civiHans held as prisoners of 
war. His request was complied with Ijy General Ross, but as the 
latter was about sailing to attack Baltimore, he deemed it prudent to 
detain Kev until after the event should have occurred. The little 
vessel in which Key was sailing was, therefore, convoyed to the 
mouth of the Patapsco an.d during the bombardment of Fort 
McHenrv held under command of the guns of a British frigate. 
During the engagement throughout that dark and stormy night he 
anxiously awaited the result. The great suspense he was under 
found vent in the soul-stirring lyric which all Americans love to sing. 



THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER. 



O, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming? 

AVhose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous tlight 
O'er the ramparts we watch'd. were so gallantly streaming? 

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air. 

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ; 
O. say, does that Star-spau-gled Banner yet wave, 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave? 



On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes. 

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, 
As it fitfully I3I0WS, half conceals, half discloses? 

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 

Li full glory reflected, now shines on the stream : 
'Tis the Star-spangled Banner ; O, long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 



And where is that band, who so vauntingly swore 
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, 

A home and a country, should leave us no more? 

Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps pollution. 

No refuge could save the hireling and slave. 

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave ; 

And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph doth wave, 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 



69 



THE BATTLE OF BALTIMORE. 

O, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand, 

Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation; 
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heaven- rescu'd land 

Praise the Power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation ! 
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
And this be our motto — "In God is our trust;"' 

And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave 

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

In the history of the lyric it is worthy to note the author of the 
music to which it was set and the occasion upon which it was sung. 
Alfred Sanderson, the veteran editor and correspondent of Pennsyl- 
vania, a most careful recorder and critic of events in American 
History, in an interesting Fourth of July article has this to say in 
regard to those two facts : 

"I have been much annoyed at the attempt made by several 
papers and magazines to tell how The Star- Spangled Banner was set 
to music and where it was first sung. Fortunately the correct infor- 
mation on this matter is to be had in the city of Harrisburg. Among 
the men who enlisted and marched from Harrisburg- to the seat of 
war, in the company of Captain Thomas Walker, were two brothers, 
Ferdinand and Charles Durang, both Pennsylvanians, and members 
of a theatrical company. Ferdinand was a composer of music, and 
Charles had a fine voice and was a good musician. While the First 
Pennsylvania Brigade lay at Baltimore the song was written by Mr. 
Key, but was without music. Air. Ferdinand Durang was urged 
to set it to music, and have it sung by his brother. After looking 
over all the music he had or knew of to find something suitable, the 
present National Air was adapted. After trying it over to the 
delight of his friends in the brigade, Charles introduced it on the 
boards of the theatre in the evening unexpectedly, and, according to 
an eye-witness of the event, 'the audience fairly raised the roof with 
their applause.' Its popularity as our National Anthem has never 
since ceased." 



70 



AN EARLY SNOW PLOW, 




"^ 



IP^K 




JUHX KULLER. 

The late John KeUer. of Lancaster, spent his long life along 
the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and mostly in its 
service, and his constructive handiwork is seen on every division of 
the road in bridge, embankment and masonry, all standing as monu- 
ments to his skill and integrit}'. He began his service on the Harris- 
burg, Portsmouth, }>It. Joy and Lancaster Railroad, in the middle 
40's, and it was at that early period he performed his part of the 
incident about to be related : 

Earh- in the nineteenth century the restless spirit of American 
progress and adventure, not quieted by extending through the Louisi- 
ana purchase the boundaries of the Ignited States across the Alissis- 
sippi, cast its eyes beyond the Sabine and toward territorial expansion 
in the land of the Aztec, with its wealth of precious stones and 
metals. Imperial expansion with imperial power and luxury was an 
ever-present dream with the highly cultivated people, scions of 



71 



AN EARLY SNOW PLOW. 

aristocratic stocks, in the Southern States of the Union, and it is not 
surprising- that the emigration to that part of Mexico now known as 
Texas was largely made up of educated emigrants from that section, 
nor that those emigrants should at an early day throw oft" their alle- 
giance to the unstable government of Mexico and establish a govern- 
ment of their own. Without sufificient strength to establish a strong 
centralized government on an aristocratic basis, there was nothing 
left the people of Texas after the independence of that Republic was 
acknowledged and established but to favor annexation to the Ignited 
States. Annexation was consummated on the 29th of December, 

1845. General Taylor, in command of a small American army, left 
New Orleans in July, 1845, to occupy Texas. On the 8th of ^larch, 

1846, he crossed the Neuces and marched toward the Rio Grande, 
occupying the disputed territory between those rivers. That occupa- 
tion brought on the jNIexican War. WHiilst General Taylor was wait- 
ing for the orders from Washington to begin his march, reinforce- 
ments were being pressed forward to him. In the winter of 1845 ^"*^^ 
1846 part of these reinforcements passed westward from Philadel- 
phia via the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. They reached 
Dillerville in comparatively good time in two trains, drawn by the 
"David R. Porter" and the "Plenry Cla}'." two eleven-ton engines. 
As the trains left Dillerville to pass over the Harrisburg and Lancas- 
ter Railroad enroute to Harrisbtirg, a snow storm came up, and soon 
the rails were covered with snow an inch or two in depth and suffi- 
cient to stall the trains. That was an unexpected and consequently 
not provided for dilemma. 'Tis true that the hickory brooms 
placed in front of the truck of the locomotive for the purpose of 
removing obstacles from the rails were in position, but they only 
tended to pack the snow harder. At this point American ingenuity 
and American pluck came to the front and improvised a snow plow 
to throw the snow from the track as the engine proceeded. This 
improvised plow consisted of plain boards held in the hand bv two 
men sitting on the bumper. The boards were used to push the snow 
to one side, and were raised and lowered whenever thev came in con- 
tact with broken joints. Practically, it was shoving the snow off 
the track. John Keller was one of the two men thus engaged, and 
in the fourteen hours that it took these trains to reach Harrisburg 
from Dillerville he stuck to his post, displaying those powers of 
endurance and loyalty to duty that characterized his career and made 
it successful. 



72 




THE OLD WAY BY I.AND. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW WAY. 



The three engravings presented herewith, ilhistrative of earher 
and present modes of transportation, are of the vahiable paintings 
belonging to the estate of the late Mr. Henry H. Houston, and from 
the pencil and easel of Mr. N. H. Trotter. 

The first one brings into bold relief the Conestoga wagon drawn 
by six sturdy horses upon whose necks are seen the bows in which 
were suspended finely toned bells, that jingled with every motion of 
the animals — the faithful dog is seen trotting" by the wagon side, 
whilst close at hand is the wayside inn where refreshment was to be 
obtained for man and beast. The construction of the wagon is 
plainly shown, the centre bending down in the bottom so that the con- 
tents would not pitch forward as a hill was descended, nor pitch back- 
ward as one was ascended ; the flared front and back and canvas 
covers were designed for protection of the goods against the weather 
or assaults of thieves. These wagons derived their name from the 
thrifty region of lyancaster county, always famous for its live stock 
and substantial vehicles. The splendid draft horses raised in that 



73 




THE OLD WAY BY WATKR. 




THE PRESENT WAY. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW WAY. 

conntv in those days were known to the market as "Conestogas," 
and it was Init natural that the name of the horse shoukl attach 
itself to the wagon which it drew. When emigration developed 
trade, the thrifty farmer developed into a common carrier and the 
Conestoga wagon became a famous transportation vehicle. 

In the second picture is shown the packet and freight canal boats 
and their connection, the inclined plane on the Allegheny Portage 
Railroad. Charles Dickens, travelling between Harrisburg and 
Pittsburgh, in his "American Notes" has something to say about 
both the packet and the plane: "Nor was the sight of this canal 
boat, in which we were to spend three or four days, by any means a 
cheerful one, as it involved some uneasy speculations concerning the 
disposal of the passengers at night, and opened up a wide field of 
inquirv touching the other domestic arrangements of the establish- 
ment, which was sufficiently disconcerting. 

"However, there it was — a barge with a little house on it, 
viewed from the outside ; and a caravan at a fair, viewed from 
within ; the gentlemen being accommodated as the spectators usually 
are in one of those locomotive museums of penny wonders ; and 
the ladies being partitioned off by a red curtain after the manner of 
the dwarf and giants in the same establishments, whose private lives 
are passed in rather close exclusiveness." After describing the 
scenes and incidents of canal boat travelling, he continues : "'And 
yet despite these oddities — and even they had, for me at least, a 
humor of their own — there was much in this mode of travelling 
which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and looked back upon with 
great pleasure. Even the running up, bare necked, at five o'clock 
in the morning, from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck ; scooping 
up the icy water, plimging one's head into it, and drawing it out, all 
fresh and glowing with the cold, was a good thing. The fast brisk 
walk upon the towing path, between that time and breakfast, 
when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health ; the excjui- 
beauty of the opening day, when the light came gleaming 
oft' from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly 
on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky ; the 
gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with 
dark trees, and sometimes angrv in one red burning spot high 
up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire ; the shining out of 
the bright stars imdisturbed by noise of wheels or steam or any other 
sound than the limpid rippling of the water as the boat went on ; all 

75 



THE OLD AND THE NEW WAY. 

these were pure delights." The means of crossing the mountains he 
describes as fohows : — 

"We left Harrisburg on Friday. (Jn Sunday we arrived at the 
foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad. There are ten 
inclined planes : five ascending and five descending ; the carriages 
are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, by means 
of stationary engines : the comparatively level spaces between being 
traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as 
the case demands. Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme 
A^erge of a giddy precipice ; and looking down from the carriage win- 
dow, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of 
fence between, into the mountain depths below. The journey is 
very carefully made, however ; onl}- two carriages travelling together : 
and while proper precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its 
dangers." 

The third picture shows the modern way. The magnificent 
bridge which spanned the Susquehanna river from the foot-hills ol 
the Kittatinny to those of the declining spurs of the anthracite coal 
mountains, and where that stream, breaking boldly through the 
mountains, forms the mirror from which is reflected wild, romantic 
and picturesque scenery rarely witnessed ; the bridge bearing upon its 
deck or ready to receive the majestic trains of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad. 




76 




n 






K',^- ^ 









TRANSPORTATION PANELS IN THE BROAD 
STREET STATION. 



These panels are the work of Karl Bitter, the famous Austrian 
sculptor. The one at the head of the grand staircase attracts univer- 
sal admiration. It is finished in imitation of old ivorv, and is a 
beautiful work of art, of which the picture printed herewith gives 
but a small conception. The aim of the sculptor was to portray 
"Transportation and the Progress of Transportation,"' and to that 
end he has embodied the genius or spirit of transportation in the 
shape of a female figure, seated on a car or chariot, forming part 
of a triumphal procession. This figure is in the act of uniting two 
groups representing the East and the West, the former being depicted 
by an old and infirm Arab and a sprightly Japanese girl, while the 
West is portrayed by a youth in Puritan garb, typifying the North, 
and a woman in Spanish costume, carrying fruits and flowers, the 
South. 

A young girl in the costume of our present time, symbolizing 
America, guides the four spirited horses that draw the chariot on 
which the figure of transportation is seated, and in front of the 
horses, forming the advance of the procession, is a group of children 
— one of them carrying the model of a locomotive, another a model 
of a steamboat, while the smallest and youngest child runs ahead 

77 



TRANSPORTATION PANELS. 

with a model of an airship, indicating a fnture method of transporta- 
tion. 

Following- the Xortli and the Sonth, as depicted by the Pnritan 
lad and the Spanish woman, is a figure on horseback, in Spanish 
costume, who holds up a model of the "Santa ]\Iaria,"" the first 
transport which came to this country ; while following him, and 
bringing up the rear of the procession, are the early pioneer and the 
Indian, together with the emigrant wagon drawn by oxen and driven 
by the early settlers. 

The large terra-cotta panel on the south end of the Fifteenth 
street arch of the great station is a remarkable piece of work, for 
besides its artistic merits it has the distinction of being the largest 
piece of terra-cotta work ever fired. It contains no less than ten 
figures of heroic proportions, and extends across the entire street, 
measuring 50 feet in length and 10 feet 6 inches in extreme height. 
The artist thus describes it : 

"In the choice of a subject for this pediment of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad Station, I have been influenced by a desire to depart from 
the traditional use and Avont in such cases, where, so far as my expe- 
rience goes, a suggestion of arrival or of departure, conveyed by 
simple figures at rest, or by negroes engaged in the transportation 
of bales of merchandise, has been all that the artist has aimed at, 
except, perhaps, in very modern instances where invention has 
soared to the representation of an express train, or of the interior 
of a Pullman palace car. The purpose I have pursued in the design 
has been to portray steam power, and I have tried to do this symboli- 
cally, by representing Man engaged in yoking to a chariot the two 
demons. Fire and Water, having previously bound them together, 
the former represented b}- a male figure, furious in expression, 
clad in lion's skin, the latter by a female with loosened hair sur- 
round b}- reeds and marsh grass. I have arranged this subject in two 
groups, which I have endeavored to model in a spirited manner, one 
on each side of the centre of the pediment. 

"In m}' humble apprehension, which is naturall}- that of an artist, 
the Pennsylvania Railroad stands out clear and distinguished as a 
typical American railroad in contrast to foreign roads. The Euro- 
pean roads are often planned for strategic reasons ,or at the nod 
of a ruler. The Pennsylvania system stands emphaticallv for the 
interest of the people. Following the pioneer, it is an essential 
auxiliary of trade and commerce — a promoter of intercourse be- 

78 



TRANSPORTATION PANELS. 

tween the sections of country which it crosses. It insures the growth 
of art,, industry and science, and is at once a promoter and conser- 
vator of American civiHzation. 

"Therefore, at the centre of the pediment is placed Mercury, 
the mythological messenger and guide of wealth and commerce, 
standing in the chariot, directing, with outstretched hand, the course 
of element-compelling man ; while seated in the chariot is T\Iinerva, 
entitled by Homer, founder of cities, surrounded by implements of 
art and industry, showing how towns and cities have arisen in the 
wake of the great railroad. 

"In the right hand corner of the pediment is placed a youth, 
symbolizing the Pennsylvana Railroad. His well-developed limbs 
betoken manlv vigor and determination; he leans against an anvil, 
while beside him a boy decorates with a spray of laurel a shield bear- 
ing the initials of the railroad. Car wheels and various tools and 
implements illustrate the significance of this group. 

"In the left-hand corner is symbolized the city of Philadelphia, 
represented by a female decorating a bust of William Penn, while a 
child crowns the city's coat of arms. Books, implements of art, 
and the Bird of Wisdom indicate the culture which Philadelphia 
has attained." 

The panels in the pinnacles along the Alarket street side of tlie 
station represent historic incidents connected with the foundmg of 
the principal cities of the Ignited States which are touched by the 
great system of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The panels are each 
about five feet wide and ten feet high, in the form of a pointed 
trefoil arch, and the figures, in high relief, are nearly life size. The 
cities represented are Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Washington, 
Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and San Fran- 
cisco. 

The incident from which the subject of Philadelpliia is taken is 
Penn's treaty with the Indians, which took place in the year 1682. 
William Penn arrived in this country in his ship Welcome, sailed up 
the Delaware river and landed at the present site of Philadelphia. 
The panel represents William Penn treating with a group of Indians. 
The panel representing New York shows Peter Minuet, who 
landed some time between the years 1609 and 161 5 on ^lanhattan 
Island, buying the land from the Indians and founding a colony, 
calling it the colony of the New Netherlands, afterwards New York. 
On the panel representing Boston is seen Blackstone inviting 

79 



TRANSPORTATION PANELS. 

Winthrop and his people to pitch their tents at his spring of fresh 
water, which weUed out of the ground of what is now the Common 
in Jjoston. 

The panel of Washington shows Jefferson, Madison and Wash- 
ington choosing the site for the new capital in the year 1790. 

The incident from which the subject of Baltimore is taken is 
Father White, who was with the first colonists who founded Balti- 
more, landing on its present site. Father White fitted up an Indian 
wigwam as a temporary chapel for holding services therein. The 
panel shows Father White holding service in the wigwam. 

Chicago is represented by John Kinzie, who settled on the site 
of that city with his wile and infant son and stepdaughter in 1804. 

On the panel of St. Louis is shown Laclede, the trapper, blazing 
the trees to mark out the site for the city of St. Louis in the year 
1763. 

The subject of the panel of Cincinnati is Mr. Denman and Mr* 
Tuttle, who in December, 1788, landed on the bank of the Ohio 
river, where they founded the town of Losantiville, which afterwards 
became the city of Cincinnati. 

The incident represented in the Pittsburgh panel is a French 
officer, Captain Coleron, taking possession of the country between 
the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, which forms the present site of 
Pittsburgh. To mark his claim he deposited in the ground at 
dift'erent points leaden plates. 

San Francisco is represented by two United States naval officers 
of the man-of-war Portsmouth, which was lying in the harbor of San 
Francisco in the year 1846. From this vessel and at this time sailors 
were landed and the place which formerly belonged to Mexico was 
taken without resistance. 



80 




THOMAS DE WITT CUYLER. 



DIRECTORS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD 

COMPANY. 



Since the publication of the "History of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company" in 1899, death has caused some important changes 
in the Board, which tend not only to keep up the high and substantial 
character of that body, but add strength by bringing into it addi- 
tional able men to meet the gigantic financial, commercial and indus- 
trial problems in the course of solution which mark these progressive 
days. The new members of the Board are Thomas De Witt Cuyler. 
Lincoln Godfrey and James McCrea, names which when spoken call 
to mind men of the highest civic virtue, into whose hands any trust 
can be placed with the full assurance that it will be faithfully admin- 
istered. 

THOMAS DE WITT CUYLER. 

At a meeting of the Board held ^slay 10, 1899. Mr. Cuyler was 
elected a Director to succeed the late Alexander Biddle. Colonel 
Cuyler, who ranks among the foremost corporation lawyers of 
Philadelphia, was born in that city on September 28, 1854. His 
father was the late Theodore Cuyler, General Counsel of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company until the time of his death on April 5. 1876. 

Colonel Cuvler received his preliminary education in Philadel- 
phia ; graduated from Yale University in 1874, and was admitted 
to the Bar in his native city in 1876. Since then he has been en- 
gaged in the general practice of the law, making corporation law a 
specialty, and is counsel for many large corporations in this and 
other States. Among others he is the General Counsel of the Adams 
Express Company and the Equitable Life Assurance Society; also 
of the Guarantee Company of North America, the Buffalo Railway 
Company and the Rochester Railway Company. 

He has also taken an active interest in military matters, having 
enlisted in the National Guard in 1874, and risen from the ranks 
to be Tndge Advocate General of the State, and is now on the retired 
roll of officers after twenty years of service, with the rank of 
Colonel. 

He is a member of the Second Presbyterian Church, and for 



DIRECTORS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD CO^IPANY. 

manv years has taken an active and prominent part in its affairs, 
and also a Trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association of 
Philadelphia. 

LIXCOLX GODFREY. 

At a meeting- of the Board on April ii, 1900. ]\Ir. Godfrey was 
elected a Director to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Air. B. 
B. Comegys. 

Mr. Godfrey was born in Philadelphia, Pa.. May, 1850. of New 
England parents. Plis father's family settled in Rhode Island early 
in the seventeenth century, his mother's family being the well-known 
Lincoln family, which settled in this country in 1635, and the de- 
scendants of which still occupy the old homestead in Wareham, Mas- 
sachusetts. Mr. Godfrey finished his education at the Ury School, 
Fox Chase. He started into business with his father's firm, B. G. 
Godfrev and Co., at that time one of the largest jobbers of dry goods 
in this country. He became a member of the firm in 1S71. leaving it 
in 1873 to make up the partnership of William Simpson, Sons and 
Co., to continue the business of William Simpson and Sons, manufac- 
turers of cotton goods. He has continued with that firm and the 
Eddvstone Manufacturing Company, organized in 1876, until now, 
being at the present time senior member of the firm of William 
Simpson, Sons and Company, and Presiden.t of the Eddy stone Man- 
ufacturing Company, who are very largely engaged in the produc- 
tion of cotton printed fabrics. He was elected Director of the 
Philadelphia National Bank. January 13, 1880, and on June 5, 1899, 
was elected its Vice-President. He is also a Director of the Phila- 
delphia Trust, Safe Deposit and Insurance Company, and a Alanager 
of the W'estern Saving Fund and the 3*Ierchants Fund Association. 
He has always attended the Episcopal Church. He resides in Phila- 
delphia in the winter, and at his country home at Radnor, on the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, in summer. 

Mr. Godfrey is one of the best known business men in Phila- 
delphia, and stands high with the merchants and financiers. 

JAAIES AIC CREA. 

l\Ir. ]McCrea was elected by the Board, June 9, 1899, to be a 
Director to fill the vacancy caused by the election of 'Sir. Cassatt as 
President. 

84 




LINCOLN GODFREY. 




JAMES McCREA. 



DIRECTORS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COAIPANY. 

^Ir. ]McCrca was born in Philadelphia. INIay i, 1848. He re- 
ceived a general education at the school of Rev. John W. Fairies, 
completing it at the Pennsylvania Polytechnic College. After his 
preparatory education he entered the service of the Connellsville & 
Southern Pennsylvania Railroad in June, 1865, as rodman. In 
December, 1867, he left the employ of the road and entered that of 
the Wilmington & Reading Railroad Company as rodman in the 
engineer corps engaged in constructing that line. He left that ser- 
vice in September, 1868, and engaged as assistant engineer in the 
construction of the Bennett's Branch of the Allegheny Valley Rail- 
road, where he remained until March i, 1871. In the various 
operations which were assigned to his care during this course of 
service he demonstrated his thoroughness and capability to stich an 
extent that he attracted the attention of higher railroad officials, 
and, upon severing his connection with the Allegheny A'alley Rail- 
road, entered the service of the then rapidly growing Pennsylvania 
Railroad Company in its construction department. Here he held the 
responsible position of Principal Assistant Engineer and was given 
large opportunities of demonstrating his ability. 

His advancement in the Pennsylvania Railroad service was very 
rapid. On August i. 1874, he ^yas transferred to the position of 
Assistant Engineer of the Philadelphia Division, continuing in that 
office until January i, 1875, ^vhen he was made Superntendent of the 
Middle Division, with headquarters at Plarrisburg. In October, 
1878, he was transferred to the superintendency of the Xew York 
Division \\ith headquarters in Jersey City. 

On May i, 1882, Mr. ^IcCrca was appointed to the manage- 
ment of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway and the 
Chicago, St. Louis & Pittsburgh Railroad, and on October 10, 1885, 
was advanced to the post of General ]\ranager of all the Pennsylva- 
nia lines west of Pittsburgh. On November i, 1887, he was elected 
Fourth Mce-President of the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburgh, 
^larch I, 1890, he was advanced to the Second \4ce-Presidency, 
and on May i, 1891. after the death of J. N. McCullough, First 
A'ice-President, iMr. McCrea was elected to succeed him, and this 
position he now holds. 

]^.Tr. McCrea's railroad services for over a third of a century have 
clothed him with practical experience in every branch of railroading, 
which, added to his great energy and quick judgment, ranks him as 
one of the best informed railroad men in the L^nited States. His 

89 



DIRECTORS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY 

election to the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company brings into closer touch with the Board its great subor- 
dinate corporation, the Pennsylvania Company, and a man whose 
broad knowledge and tender sympathies have endeared him to the 
rank and file of the employes throughout the system, and one who 
has won a high oosition in the confidence of the business world. 




THE SECRETARY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 
RAILROAD COMPANY. 



Lewis Xeilsoii, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany, was born at Florence, N. J., on the 30th of September, i860; 
he is the son of Thomas Neilson, President of the Elmira & Williams- 
port Railroad Company, and Sarah Claypoole Lewis, and is the 
grandson of Robert Xeilson, who was at one time Judge Advocate of 
the West Indies by appointment of the Crown, and of W^illiam D. 
Lewis, a prominent Philadelphia merchant, bank officer, and, from 
184Q to 1853, Collector of Customs for the Port of Philadelphia, a 
railroad officer in one of the first railroads of the country, and was 
interested in the importation of the first locomotive brought to this 
country. Air. Neilson entered t!ie University of Pennsylvania in 
June, 1877, and was graduated from the College Department in 
June, 1 88 1. 

On the 20th of June, 1881, he entered the service of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company as weighing clerk on AA'alnut Street 
Wharf. From the first of October to the tenth of December, 1881, 
was assistant receiving clerk, and from the latter date until the 23d 
of October, 1882, he filled various positions in the Cashier's Depart- 
ment of that station. On October 23d, 1882, he was promoted to 
be stenographer in the Trace and Claim Department of that agency, 
and served as such until July 16, 1883, wdien he entered the office of 
Mr. John P. Green, then Fourth Vice-President, as stenographer ; 
December, 1885, was promoted to Chief Clerk in that office, and con- 
tinued to occupy the position under ]\Ir. Green's several promotions 
to the First Mce-Presidency. During his long service in Air. 
Green's office he also performed work in the President's office, and 
always acted in place of the latter's Secretary when the incumbent 
was absent. On February 8, 1893. he married Miss Clara A. 
Rosengarten, daughter of Mr. Harry B. Rosengarten, of the firm 
of Rosengarten & Sons, of Philadelphia. 

On Alay i, 1897, Air. Xeilson was appointed Chief Clerk to the 
vSecretary. On the 26th of the same month he was appointed As- 
sistant Secretary pro tem. on account of the illness of the Assistant 
Secretary, and continued to fill that office, in addition to performing 

91 



SECRETARY OF THE PEXXSYLVAXIA RAILROAD COMPANY. 

his duties as Chief Clerk, until June i, 1898, when he was appointed 
Assistant Secretary of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and of 
the Philadelphia, AMlniington & Baltimore Railroad Company. On 
June 27, 1898, he was appointed to fill the same position with the 
Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad Company, and on 
June 3, i8(j8, was elected Secretary of the ]\Ianor Real Estate and 
Trust Company. On January 23, 1901, he was elected Secretary of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and of the Philadelphia, \M1- 
mington & Baltimore Railroad Company, to succeed ]\lr. John C. 
vSims. deceased. 

In addition to his duties, v\'hich place him in the closest confiden- 
tial relations with the ofiicers and the Board of Directors of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and many of its affiliated lines, 
he is charged with the issue and transfer of the capital stock, and 
of the Stock Transfer Offices in the cities of Philadelphia and 
New York. 

Mr. Xeilson also has the entire supervision of the lighting, heat- 
ing, policing and care of the General Office Building of the Com- 
pany,, with its two thousand occupants. He is also the division 
officer of the Relief Department for the General Office. 

He is a capable and efficient executive officer, with excellent 
control over his subordinates ; a prompt and energetic worker : a 
strict and just diciplinarian, and noted for his consistent honesty of 
purpose and fair dealing. 

Mr. Xeilson is an enthusastic follower of outdoor sports, being 
a constant golfer ; and has for many years been prominent in the 
graduate councils of the University of Pennsylvania, having served 
for several years, prior to 1894, as a Director and Treasurer and 
Secretary successively of the Athletic Association, and later, as a 
member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the 
General Alumni Society, as well as its Secretar}- and Treasurer. 

He is an amateur musician of some attainment in vocal music, 
and is a member of the Orpheus Club, and now its Treasurer and 
a member of its Executive Committee. 

His intelligence, good judgment, and thoroughness in business 
organization and detail, have rendered his services of great value 
in every position which he has filled with the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company and with the many societies and associations with which 
he has been coimected. 

Following the appointment of Mr. X^eilson to the Secretaryship, 

92 




LEWIS NEILSON. 



SECRETARY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY. 

the Board amended the oro-anization for conchieting the business of 
the Company, so as to provide for three Assistant Secretaries ; two 
of which are located at the General Office of the Company. Mr. 
Robert H .Groff was already appointed Assistant Secretary in charge 
of the Stock Transfer Office of the Company, in the city of New 
York, and the two new Assistant Secretaries appointed w^ere A. J. 
County and K. S. Green. 

Mr. County was also appointed Superintendent of the Employes' 
Saying- Fund, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. John C. 
Sims. 

Mr. A. J. County was born in the city of Dublin, Ireland, on 
August I, 1S71, and educated in that city. In July, 1885, he entered 
the service of the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, 
the largest railway compau}- in Ireland, in its purchasing department, 
and after a practical experience of five years, resigned his position in 
search of a wider field for promotion. On November 7, 1890, he 
arrived in the city of Philadelphia, and on the 20th day of the same 
month entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
as a clerk in the Secretary's Department. He has been continuously 
connected with that department ; serving under Mr. John C. Sims, 
Mr. D. S. X^ewhall and Mr. Lewis Neilson. 

In June, 1898, upon the promotion of Mr. D. S. Newhall as 
Purchasing Agent of the Company, and the advancement of >.Ir. 
Lewis Neilson to be Assistant Secretary of the Company, he was 
appointed Chief Clerk. On November i, 1900, he was elected As- 
sistant Secretary of the Alanor Real Estate and Trust Company. 
On December i, 1900, Assistant to the Secretary of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad 
Companies, and on January 2}^. 190 1, Assistant Secretary of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the Philadelphia, Wilmington 
& Baltimore Railroad Company, and Superintendent of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Employes' Saving Fund. 

Mr. Kane Stovell Green was born in the city of Philadelphia, 
January 27, 1874. He was graduated from Mr. George F. Martin's 
school for boys in West Philadelphia in June, 1890, and from Hav- 
erford College in June, 1894. He entered the railroad service on 
October i, 1894, with the Allegheny Valley Railway Company at 
Pittsburgh and Reynoldsville, serving there until July 31, 1895. 
He entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 
September, 1895, i" the Accounting Department, where he remained 

97 



DIVISION FREIGHT AGENTS. 

until December, 1896, when he was transferred to the Secretary's 
office. In May, 1897, he entered the First Vice-President's office, 
and on February i, 1901, was appointed to be an Assistant Secretary 
of the Company. 




DIVISION FREIGHT AGENTS. 



GEORGE D. OGDEN, 



George D. Ogden, Division Freight Agent, Pennsylvania Rail- 
road, with headquarters at Altoona, Pa., who is one of the sterling 
young men of the service, with a bright future before him, was born at 
Homer City, Indiana County, Pa., ]\Iay 16, 1868. His education 
was obtained in the public schools of that place and the Indiana State 
Normal School, Indiana, Pa., subsequent to which he entered ^^^ash- 
ington and Jefferson College, Pa., Class of "90. His father had been 
passenger, baggage and second-class freight agent at Homer for 
many }ears, and upon the changing of the agency from second to 
first-class freight, George left college to succeed his father as opera- 
tor, agent and operator. June i. 1887. Transferred to Yard Master's 
office, Allegheny City Yard, August i, 1890; clerk in Superintend- 
ent's office, West Penn Division, October i, 1890; Agent, Butler, 
Pa., jMay 11, 1891 ; Freight Agent. ]\IcKeesport, Pa., February 11, 
1895; Freight Agent, Harrisburg, Pa., January i, 1898; and Divi- 
sion Freight Agent at Altoona, January 14, 1901. 

ROBERT C. WRIGHT. 

Robert Clinton Wright was born in Brazil, South America, 
December 5, 1869; was brought to Baltimore in 1871, and educated 
in the public schools of that city and graduated from the City College 
in 1887. He is a grandson of the late Robert Clinton ^^'right, one 

98 




G. D. OGDEN. 



LtfC. 




R. C. WRIGHT. 



DIVISION FREIGHT ACxENTS. 

of the early Presidents of the Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad 
Company, which was later merged into and forms a part of the 
present Northern Central Railway Company. Immediately after 
leaving school he was employed in the office of C. ]Morton Stewart 
& Co., leaving- tliat firm in 1888 to enter the service of this Companv 
as messenger at Patterson's AMiarf, ^larch 18; he served as messen- 
ger and clerk at that station until July 30, 1889. when he was trans- 
ferred to the office of the General Agent as clerk. 

He continued as such until June i, 1897, when he was appointed 
Freight Solicitor for Baltimore. On January i, 1899. he was pro- 
moted to be Special Agent, Transportation Department, in the office 
of the General Superintendent of Transportation. Philadelphia ; 
served as such until 3day i. 1899, when he was promoted to be Divi- 
sion Freight Agent at Altoona : and on January 14, 1901, to be 
Division Freight Agent at Harrisbure. 




103 



A FAITHFUL SURGEON. 




Dk. WILLIAM R. BLAKESLEE. 

Among the manv long- time employes of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Compan}-, there is no one who commands more respect from 
the officers and men, than Doctor William R. Blakeslee. of Coates- 
ville, Chester county, Pa., who for a third of a century has rendered 
exceptional service as Company Surgeon. The Doctor was born in 
Susquehanna county, Pa., September 20, 1822, and was graduated 
from the Franklin ]\Iedical College. Philadelphia, with the degree of 
l\t. D., Fcliruarv 15. 1848. His marriage took place the next day, 
and on the following day he located in Guthrieville, Chester county, 
Pa., and began the practice of his professiori with instant success. 
Since then his life has been one ccr.tinue;! round of well doing, sym- 
pathizing with distress, alleviating suffering, consoling the afflicted 
and comforting the dying. liut in other scenes than those of pathos, 
despair, sorrow, suffering and grief he has been a factor ; as a citizen, 
parent, friend, he has filled the full measure of a useful life, and the 
communit\- in which he lives right!}- esteems him very highly. 



104 



A FAITHFUL SURGEON. 

In the spring of 1852, the Doctor moved to Philadelphia and 
became physician for the Southwest District of the Blockley Alms- 
house. Desiring" to better qualify himself for the practice of his 
profession, he matriculated in the Medical Department of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, from which he received his diploma in 
March, 1853, and in June of that year settled in Coatesville. In 
1854 he was physician at the Chester County Almshouse, rendering 
good service during the cholera epidemic of that year. 

On October 29, 1861, he was mustered into the United States 
Army, and assigned as surgeon to the 115th Pennsylvania Volunteer 
Regiment, and served with it in the Army of the Potomac until 
March 26, 1863. In July, 1863, he w^as assigned to duty with the 
48th Penns}-h'ania during the emergency caused by the Gettysburg 
campaign. In 1864, he was on duty as surgeon at Hammond Gen- 
eral Hospital and General Depot for Prisoners of War, at Point 
Lookout, jMd., from Avhence he was called'severally to the McClellan 
General Hospital, at Philadelpma ; to administer to a detachment of 
the 3d Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps at Scranton, Pa., and to the 
White Hall P'nited States General Hospital, near Bristol, Pa. He 
remained at the latter until the close of the Rebellion. On the 8th 
of Alay, 1865, having been relieved from further service, he returned 
to Coatesville, having served with the army an aggregate of two 
and one-half years in the various departments. Some faint idea of 
an army surgeon's arduous work, and serious responsibility, mav be 
gleaned from the statement that after the battle of the \\'ilderness, 
over 40,000 wounded men were sent to the hospitals in \\'ashington 
alone, all of Avhom had to be prepared for transportation bv the 
Field Surgeons. It was no small honor to belong to that noble band 
of professional men, who 'mid the din and carnage of battle bound 
up the wounds of the suffering. 

In 1865, Dr. Blakeslee was chosen Company Surgeon, and has 
faithfully served ever since. During that period he served in addi- 
tion, 1S78 to 1S83, as Company Surgeon for the AMlmington & 
Northern Railroad Company. 

His skill as a diagnosian, coupled to a sound judgment, called 
him into frequent consultation with other physicians, whilst his ripe 
experience and personal integrity, made him a much sought after 
counsellor. Xow^ as his sun is setting, a halo of love and esteem 
from his fellows-men softens the retiring light. 



105 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 



The article on "Traffic Departments" to be found in Ringwalt's 
"Development of Transportation Systems in the Lnited States" 
contains this paragraph : — 

"The moving- of all the freight and passengers that are now 
moved on American railways with the degree of safety and certainty 
that has been attained at the prevailing low rate of average charges 
is the greatest task ever performed by any combination of agencies, 
and the traffic departments deserve a liberal share of the credit of 
the wonderful achievements that are constantly being repeated." 

Heartilv affirming the sentiments and conclusions contained in 
that paragraph, and bearing testimony to the great work and suc- 
cesses of the managers of the trafiic departments of railways, to 
their unwearying and indomitable quest for traffic, their wonderful 
development of business methods, and in the face of serious obsta- 
cles in securing or creating for their lines a paying trade, I cannot 
forbear claiming for the freight or station agents the position of 
invaluable auxiliaries in the achievement of the successes. 

It is a popular error that the business of a great line is exclu- 
sively seciu'ed by solicitation. The manner of conducting the busi- 
ness by the local agent and the facilities he has wherewith to handle 
it, is no inconsequent factor in obtaining it. Transportation, when 
bought or sold in large quantities is usually a subject of contract 
by the heads of the traffic department, and it is not uncommon that 
the well advised freight agent is the first mover in the negotiations 
Vvdiich lead to the contract. 

Unless he has filled the office of freight agent, no person can 
fully appreciate the vast amount of labor inseparable from the posi- 
tion or allot the proper measure of credit due the incumlient. The 
details of that labor are so multitudinous, and their diversity so 
great, that a novice is bewildered when he comes in contact with 
them. As their years of service accumulate, education and knowl- 
edge acquired by the freight agents keep pace with the accumulation. 
It is a rare instance where one is seen, who, having reached the 
prime of life, is not well versed in a wide range of literature, who is 
not active in the line of his business, and who does not take an intelli- 

io6 




E. E. ZEIGLEK. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

gent interest in all matters pertaining to the public good. The rail- 
road is a University of its own, and as a class in that school of learn- 
ing, the freight agents represent a true American citizenship and a 
high standard of personal morality and business proficiency. 

The freight agents are the most carefully supervised of all the 
employes of a railroad company by reason of the fact that not less 
than seventv per cent, of the revenues passing into the corporation's 
treasurv is collected by them. Selection is, therefore, an important 
element in their appointment. On the Pennsylvania Railroad the 
nominating power vests in the officials of the Transportation De- 
partment, to whom the agents are responsible for the administration 
and discipline of their agencies. The agents are also repuired to 
conform to the instructions of the General Freight Department in 
relation to classification, rates and other matters connected with the 
securing of traffic ; to those from the Treasurer, pertaining to the 
disposition of the money collected by them ; and to such as originate 
in the Accounting Department in connection with the accuracy of 
their accounts. 

A man above the average is necessary to fill the requirements 
of the position. He must possess education and good moral fibre ; 
be urbane in his intercourse with the officials and the patrons of the 
road and ever ready to meet the exigencies which are constantly 
arising in the mutations of trade. Up early and late, he must be in 
touch with the social, industrial and mercantile interests by which 
he is environed ; alive to all public questions, which may effect rail- 
road conditions in the locality in which he is stationed, and by his 
administration of his office in its contact with the public attract traffic 
to his line. He is, in fact, the local representative of the corporation 
he serves, and by a wise and judicious coitrse of conduct an important 
personage in securing traffic ; in that sense he is the pulse of the com- 
mercial system of the Company, and by his keen insight into local 
requirements and with extended geographical knowledge, enabled to 
keep his superiors advised of the trend of trade, and the transporta- 
tion needs of the people. 

The study of rates and classifications and their application anala- 
gously to unnamed articles ofi^ered for shipment requires a mind of 
almost legal acumen. Any untrained person who contemplates the 
volumes of rates, classifications, excerpts from law and official rulings 
that the Interstate Commerce law requires to be posted for public 
use and inspection in every station from Jones" Cross Roads to 

109 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

greater New York, will turn away dazed and amazed by this attempt 
to understand what it all means, and form an elevated opinion of the 
agent who must understand and apply them. 

Being the one coming most generally in personal contact with the 
patrons of the Company, the agent must ever be ready to serve them, 
to listen to and correct complaints, sift suggestions for the improve- 
ment of the volume of traffic, and be familiar with the requirements of 
the law, not only as to interstate commerce, iiut also as to license, in- 
ternal revenue, cruelty to animals and a host of other subjects em- 
braced in local laws and ordinances. Not only must he keep his eyes 
upon the traffic to and from his station, but he must direct them to 
that of the competing line, so that the latter may not receive more 
than its fair portion without the cause becoming known. Then, 
too, the direction of his subordinates is no small responsibility, 
for it is through them that the successful handling of goods 
entrusted to his care for shipment or delivery must be con- 
summated. Economy in the current expenses of his station and 
in the use of cars consistent wth prompt movement must always 
be in his mind and vigorously practiced, a voluminous corre- 
spondence relative to rates, claims, delays, and discipline with the 
officials, and to inquiries or complaints from the public, constantly 
demand his attention. These wdth the keeping and preservation of 
records, making statements, reports, bills for charges, way-bills, bills 
of lading and receipts for delivery, which must be done under his 
supervision, makes the clerical part of the duties, for the faithful 
performance cf which he is responsible, one of such magnitude that 
anv other than a well-trai:ied, well-selected agent would fail un.der. 

That the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in its selection of men 
fully up to the requirements necessary to fill the position of freight 
agent has been unerringly successful, is to be found in the excei-'- 
tional superb corps they have installed on their lines east of Pitts- 
burgh and Erie. Many of those agents have served for more than 
a lifetime of a generation, and have v/on for themselves unexcelled 
reputations for probity, integrity and fidelity. The greatest praise that 
can be given the agents is the statement that since the organization of 
the company over a thousand millions of dollars have been collected by 
them and yet the percentage of revenues lost by carelessness, robbery, 
or embezzlement has been so infinitesimal that it is scarcely com- 
putable. The dignity and importance of the freight agency in the 
combination of forces that make a railroad corporation successful 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

can not be exaggerated. And it is a wise policy that strengthens the 
hands of those who fill them. In this connection, it is but proper to 
give glimpses of typical agen.ts at various points along the line, be- 
ginning with the one located at the western terminal of the Penn- 
svlvania Railroad : — 

PITTSBURGH. 

E. E. ze;igler. 

Pittsburgh and its environs being the greatest of all the cities 
on this continent as a producer of tonnage for transportation as well 
as the centre of the keenest and most active competition for the con- 
trol of traffic, requires a strong, broad, comprehensive and coura- 
geous man to act as freight agent in its midst. A weak, uncertain 
person would soon be swept av/ay by the whirlpool of commercial 
activity which exists there. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
is well represented in the person of Colonel Edwin Elmer Zeigler, 
who, whether as a mechanic, a soldier, a railroad official, or as a 
citizen, has always been equal to an}- responsibility laid upon him. 
He is a nian of splendid physique, calm temperament and phil- 
osophic trend of mind, and has accpiired, through life's expe- 
riences, a fund of business and general knowledge, which, 
combined with great ability for order and discipline, has 
made him a fitting person for the responsible position he occupies. 
Mr. Zeigler was born at Lewistown, Pennsylvania. November 
24, 1842, and attended the public schools and academy at that 
place. At fourteen years of age he left school to learn a 
trade. Upon the opening of the Civil War he w^as working in a 
machine shop, and was a member of a local military company named 
the "Logan Guards." \Mien Governor Curtin made an appeal for 
volunteers under the President's call he, in face of parental protest, 
marched to the front with his compan}-. The "Logan Guards" was 
one of the five Pennsylvania companies who were the first troops to 
arrive at Washington in defense of the Government. From the day 
he took up his march until the close of the war, he was a true soldier 
of the Republic, rising by ability and merit from the rank of private 
to that of Lieutenant Colonel. C)n August 18, 1861, his term of prior 
enlistment having expired x\ugust I, 1861, he re-entered the service 
as second lieutenant of Company E, 49th Pennsylvania A'olunteers, 
attached to General \Mnfield Scott Hancock's Brigade of General 
William F. Smith's Division. The second term of enlistment having- 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

expired November 26, 1861, he again, on March 7, 1862, re-entered 
the army as second heutenant of the 107th Pennsylvania Vokmteers, 
attached to First Brigade, Second Division of the Fifth Army Corps, 
serving under Generals Duryee, Paul Crawford, Ricketts, Gibbon, 
Newton, McDowell, Hooker and Reynolds, and after consolidation, 
with the Fifth Army Corps, under Generals Robinson, Griffin and 
Warren. Bv efficiency and gallantry, he was successively promoted 
to be Captain, JVIajor and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. Holding the 
latter rank he was discharged July 13, 1865, after being in active 
service for 3 years, 10 months and 28 days, and havng participated 
in the battles of Cedar ^fountain, BjuII Run, Chantilly, South Moun- 
tain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine 
Run, Wilderness. Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Front of Petersburg, 
Weldon Ralroad, etc., and in the marches and skirmishes incident to 
the service wnth the Army of the Potomac. He is a member of the 
Union Veteran Legion, the Loyal Legion and society of the Army of 
the Potomac. His duties in the field had hardly closed when he 
adapted himself to the requirements of civil life and entered the ser- 
vice of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. On July 13, 1865, 
he assumed the duties of a clerk in the freight office at Huntingdon, 
then, as now, under the management of Alexander Elliott. Decem- 
ber 15, 1866, he was appointed Freight Agent at Allegheny City, 
and May 22^, 1892, Freight Agent at Duquesne Station, Pittsburgh, 
performing the duties of his several positions with an efficiency 
which characterizes all his movements. He resides in Sharpsburg 
and has always taken a deep interest in the afifairs of that borough, 
having served three terms as Burgess and many years as a member 
of the School Board, of which for several terms he was President. 
He attends with great regularity the services of the Methodist 
Church, and although not a member, is always to be found advancing 
its activities. 

WILMERDING. 

E. R. STEWART . 

Wilmerding, an important artery to the heart of the Iron King- 
dom, is situated on the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
fourteen miles east of Pittsburgh. In the centre of the famous Turtle 
Creek Valley and surrounded by wooded hills, with a resident popu- 
lation of 5.000, daily increased from McKeesport, four miles to the 
south, and from Pitcairn, one mile to the east, by people on business. 




EDWIN R. STEWART. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

it is one of the most interesting^ and prosperous communities in the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 1887 its site was a lonely 
yalley with a single cabin erected in it, and its transformation is due to 
the establishment there of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company's 
works — works famous the world over for the quality and quantity of 
their output, the content of their employes and the perfectness and 
justness of their management. The town is a model one. The 
hillsides are dotted with cottages owned by the men who work in the 
shops. These cottages were built by the company and sold to the 
men at cost on easy payments. The architecture and workmanship 
of these homes is of a superior character, and whilst their construc- 
tion and sale possessed benevolent features, their owners' indepen- 
dence and individuality was, and is strictly observed. It is the 
terminus of the electric lines running from Pittsburgh and AIcKees- 
port, and has a daily service of eighty-six passenger trains. A 
splendid school house, several churches and an elegant bank and 
hotel are marked features of the town, Avhich is well lighted by elec- 
tricity and supplied Avith natural gas, city water, fire hydrants and 
sewerage. The principal industry is that of the Westinghouse 
Company, whose plant gives employment to over 2,000 men, and 
furnishes ninety per cent, of all the air brakes used. Onlv one 
mile west is located the Vv'estinghouse Electric and Manufacturing 
Company's plant, employing in the neighborhood of 4,000 people. 
It is claimed that \^'ilmerding enjoys the distinction of having the 
finest general office building in the United States, the lower portion 
being used by the Young Men's Christian Association, and the upper 
by the Westinghouse officials. The important freight traffic to and 
from Wilmerding is under the very efficient charge of Edwin R. 
Stewart, the Pennsylvania Railroad Agent. 

Air. Stewart is the son of Judge Robert and Elizabeth A. 
(Patton) Stewart and was born on the Stewart homestead farm in 
Blair county. Pa, February 18 1862. He attended the public 
schools of Williamsburg in his native county until February, 1878, 
when he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
in the Transportation Department, under John Reillv, at Altoona, 
where he remained until March, 1881, when this department having 
been removed to Philadelphia, he was transferred to the jMotive 
Power Department, remaining there one year. On May 30, 1882, 
he was sent to Conemaugh and placed in charge of the agency and 
shop work, continuing in charge until December 31, 1897, when he 



115 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

was transferred to \Mlmerdino-, and placed in charge of the agency 
there. Mr. Stewart is a member of the Presbyterian Chnrch and 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Yonng Men's Christian Association. 
He has always taken an active part in all matters affecting the inter- 
ests of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. A great deal of credit , 
is due him for the success of the Pennsylvania Railroad Young 
Men's Christian Asociation at Conemaugh, and of the Employes' 
Saving Fund on the western part of the main line. He sent the 
first word of the terrible Johnstown flood to J. B. Hutchinson, then 
acting General Superintendent at Altoona. by dispatching a man 
overland to Ebensburg on horseback and took an active part in the 
rebuilding of the road after the disaster. 

JOHXSTOWN, PA. 

F. S. DECKKRT. 

Johnstown, for nearly seventy years, has been a noted trans- 
portation point. Its location in the State system of railroads and 
canals made it a connection point for the transshipment of passengers 
and merchandise interchanging loetween the East and the West. 
That fact, added to the inexhaustible mineral wealth in its surround- 
ing hills, developed it into a manufacturing town of large proportion. 
It derives its name from Joseph Yahns, or Johns, pioneer German, 
who settled there in 1791. It might be well to add that there is a 
claim that the name was derived from John Holliday, born December 
18, 1780, and a son of Adam Holliday, after whom the town of 
Hollidaysburg was named. The claim is that John Holliday, about 
1808, crossed the Allegheny Mountains and purchased of Samuel An- 
derson, of Bedford, a 400-acre tract of land on the Conemaugh, at 
the mouth of Stony Creek, and located there ; and this place was 
called John's place : that he built a grist mill, which his father and 
friends called "John's mill :" and he subsecjuently staked oft' a 
town which was called "John's" town. The records of the county, 
however, do not furnish any evidence upon which this claim can be 
based. Joseph Johns laid out the town in 1800, and called it Cone- 
maugh, by which name it was known until 1831, when its corporate 
title was changed to Johnstown in honor of the founder. The chain 
of title to the land is as follows : The Commonwealth to Charles 
Campbell, the warrantee, April 3, 1769, No. 1683 : Campbell to 
James AMlkins, February i, 1780: \\'ilkins to John Johnson, Octo- 

116 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

her 31, 1781 ; Johnson to James ]\icLanahan, September 24, 1782. 
The Commonwealth issued a patent to McLanahan, April 26, 1788, 
containing- 249 acres, and an allowance of six per cent, for roads. 
The tract was called "Conemaugh Old Town Tract."' jMcLanahan 
sold to Joseph Johns, September 30, 1792. The original title deeds 
to many lots in the town were made out in his name. Johns laid out 
a town upon it in 1800, and sold lots in it until JMay 2, 1807, when he 
sold the tract to John Anderson and William Hartley, of Bedford. 
Anderson and Hartley sold to John Holliday, March 30, 1808, and 
he sold to Peter Levergood, June 21, 181 1. From this it will be seen 
that Johns had laid out the town eight years before Holliday became 
possessed of the tract. 

Johnstown as a producer of traffic for transportation, assumes 
a high position ; the works of the Cambria Steel Company and kin- 
dred manufacturers, Avith the tanneries and mines, make it a point of 
great activity in railroad business. The Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company alone handles there annually over one hundred thousand 
carloads of freight, producing over two million dollars of revenue. 
To look after its interests in this direction it had for a number of 
years as its agent there, F. S. Deckert, who was born in Waynesboro, 
Franklin county, Pa., February 8, 1839. His paients moved to 
Blairsville in 1850. At that place he received his education in the 
public schools. In 1859 he went to Pittsburgh to learn the tinning 
trade, at which he worked until August, 1862, when he enlisted for 
three years in Company E, 139th Pennsylvania Volunteers, attached 
to 3d Brigade, 3d Division, 6th Corps, Army of the Potomac. The 
first unpleasant army duties he was called upon to perform were 
the sad ones of burying the dead, after the second battle of Bull Run. 
He engaged in the battles and skirmishes of the Fredericksburg, 
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns. After the latter he was 
taken sick, and being unable to perform field duty, was detailed as a 
clerk in the government storehouse at Frederick, }*Iaryland, and con- 
tinued there as such until the close of the war. On September i, 
1865, jMr. Deckert was appointed an assistant to the agent at Blairs- 
ville ; in 1867, was made agent at Xatrona, and in Septemb'^r, 1868, 
agent at Johnstown. On ]\ray 20, 1901, he laid down the duties of 
Freight Agent and assumed those of Passenger Agent. Thirty- 
seven years of continuous service have found him undeviatingly 
faithful to the best interests of his employers and proven him a 
man of the highest reliabilitv and intes'ritv. 



T19 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 
EBEXSBURG, PA. 

ABEL LLOYD. 

Ebensburg is one of the most delightful places in the mountain 
regions of Pennsylvania, and a favorite resort for the summer seek- 
ers after health and quiet pleasure. It was founded by the Welsh, 
the Rev. Rees Lloyd, who had settled there, organized on April 7, 
1797, a Congregational church, which became the nucleus of the 
town. ]\Ir. Lloyd, two years before, had been ordained to the minis- 
try at Ebenezer, Pontypool, jMonmouthshire, Wales, where he had 
been preaching some time, and thus Ebenezer, in Wales, became the 
sponsor in naming the town in Pennsylvania as well as his eldest 
son Eben. It is located in the exact centre of Cambria county, be- 
came the county seat, March 29, 1805 ,and was incorporated into a 
borough in 1825. Before the days of railroads it was a town of 
importance, the northern Pennsylvania route passing through it. 
Lumber was its important commercial feature, as it is to-day. 
Whilst hemlock for building purposes led the manufacture of lum- 
ber, ash, maple, cherr}\ poplar and cucumber in large quantities have 
been manufactured for shipment to markets east and west. The 
extensive shook business carried on there has its market principally 
in the West Indies. It is noted for its good butter, which finds 
prompt sales in the larger towns and cities. The Pennsylvania 
Railroad agent at Ebensburg, up to January i, 1900, when he was 
retired on pension by reason of having reached the age limit, was 
Mr. Abel Lloyd. Mr. Lloyd was born at Ebensburg, June 22, 1824. 
His father, John Lloyd, the son of the Rev. Rees Lloyd, the founder 
of the town, was born in 1782, and was Ebensburg's first postmaster. 
Abel Lloyd was educated at the Ebensburg Academy, but his father 
dying when he was 14 years of age, and his mother when he was 
17, closed his school career, and he entered his apprenticeship to 
the cabinet-maker trade in which he served for three years, never, 
however, working at it after that time had expired. He then went 
to rafting on the Susquehanna. His first experience was a thrilling 
one, as the raft upon which he was floating went to pieces on the 
rocks at Chest Falls, and he narrowly escaped being drowned. This, 
however, did not deter him, but he went to it again, continuing at 
it until the rafting season was over. The following winter (1845) 
he taught school in Camln-ia township. When the school term ended, 
he engaged as clerk in a store for one year, and then contracted to 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

manage a store for O'Xeill & Rhey at foot of Plane No. 4 on the 
Allegheny Portage Railroad, and opened the first post-office, which 
was named Hemlock, at that point. Upon the expiration of the 
contract, A\'hich vvas only for one year, he sold out the store and 
started to go South. He went West as far as Pittsburgh, when, 
being offered a position in the wholesale commission and for- 
warding house of Rhey & [Matthews, of that city, he gave up his 
southern trip and accepted it. The firm subsequently sent him to 
Johnstown to superintend for them the Johnstown and Conemaugh 
Furnaces. He moved into Cambria township in 1857, ^^"^^^ "^^'^^ elected 
Justice of the Peace. The following year he was elected County 
Commissioner, in which office he served during the years 1858, 1859 
and i860. In 1858 he started the Ebensburg and Cresson Railroad, 
which was incorporated in 1859, when he became Chairman of Ac- 
counts, and afterwards Secretary of the Company. The latter 
positon he continued to hold until [May 8, 1891, when the property 
and franchises of the company were sold under foreclosure of mort- 
gage. In the meantime he had moved to Ebensburg, and was elected 
Burgess of the borough. This election was an exciting one, the 
political atmosphere being heated by the burning question of hogs 
being allowed to perambulate the streets of their own free will. 
"Hogs in," "Hogs out," became the rallying cries, and agitated the 
minds of the local statesmen until the election was over, and Squire 
Lloyd decreed that hogs must be restrained from pedestrian rights 
on the public thoroughfares. In 1861, Mr. Lloyd became the agent 
at Ebensburg, and continued to fill the position until Januarv i, 1900, 
when, under the pension rules of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany, he was retired. As cabinet-maker's apprentice, raftsman, 
school teacher, store clerk, furnace manager, trader, "Squire," Com- 
missioner, Burgess and railroad official, Abel Lloyd has alwavs held 
and maintained the respect and confidence of all those who have 
known or had any dealings with him. 

ALTOONA. 

A. T. HEINTZELMAN. 

Although but fifty }-ears old, Altoona is a city of no small pro- 
portions, and teems with industrial and commercial life. The great 
shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company are located there, and 
supplemented with kindred works, give the main employment which 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

sustains fiftv thousand people in comfortable and luxurious homes. 
Splendid stores, churches, hotels, schools and private residences 
adorn the streets ; its trolley extends to various parts of Blair county. 
The general superintendence of the main line and branches of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad has its home there. In that home are to be 
found the motive power and machinery and scientific experts whose 
work has become famous and known the world over. There is but 
one "jMountain City" in the United States, in the sense implied by the 
term city, and that one is Altoona ; and it is, therefore, no small honor 
to be the commercial representative of a great corporation within its 
limits. 

Such has been accorded Mr. A. T. Heintzelman, Freight, 
Transfer and Scale Agent. Mr. Heintzelman was born near ]\Ianor 
Station, AA'estmoreland county. Pa., October 13, 1857. After at- 
tending the public schools he took up the study of telegraphy. He 
entered "AK"' tower at Penn Station as a student, ]\Iarch, 1875, ^^'^^^ 
mastering the profession, he served as an extra operator on the 
Pittsburgh Division unil July, 1876, when he was transferred to 
Philadelphia, and employed as an operator in Belmont switch tower 
imtil the close of the Centennial Exhibition. x\ll the switches on 
tracks leading in and out of the Centennial station were controlled 
from that tower. It was about the first real practical demonstration 
of the utility of the interlocking system of switches now so generally 
used on railroads in this country. At the close of the Centennial 
Exhibition, Mr. Heintzelman returned to the Pittsburgh Division, 
carrying with him the following letter, which he prizes very highly, 
having won it when yet quite young in the service. 



PniLADELrHiA, November i, 1876. 

Mr. John Sutkr, Division Operator, Pittsburgh Division, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Dkar Sir : — Before the business in connection with the Cen- 
tennial Exhibition had assumed any large proportions you kindly 
loaned to this Division the services of the bearer, A. T. Heintzelman, 
operator. As the Centennial Exhibition is now closed, and his ser- 
vices at an end in the position he held in Belmont tower, he returns 
to you with an enviable record. He has performed his duties in a 
most important locality faithfullv and successfullv, ever evincing 




W. B. HUMES 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

a spirit of interest in the immense work which has been accomplished. 
\\'ith many thanks for his services, I remain 
Yours truly, 

(Sig'ned) Chas. E. Pugh, 

General Agent. 

After his return to the Pittsburgh Division he was again em- 
ployed as extra telegraph operator, and for a time tilled the position 
of Night Yardmaster and Weighmaster at East Greensburg. 

In April, 1879, he was appointed Freight and Passenger Agent 
at Ore Hill, on the Bloomfield Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 
On October i, 1881, he was offered and accepted the position of 
Chief Clerk to Mr. John C. Boggs, Freight Agent at Altoona, hold- 
ing that ]30sition until Deceml:)er i, 1881, when he was appointed 
Agent and Yardmaster at Hollidaysburg. 

In November, 1882, J\Ir. Boggs having been given a leave of 
absence on account of ill-health, ]\rr. Heintzelman took charge of 
the Altoona agency in addition to his duties at Hollidaysburg. He 
continued in the dual position until May, 1884, when he was relieved 
of the Hollidaysburg agency, being succeeded by Mr. Richard Roe- 
lofs. In April, 1890, the 4th Street Scale Avas placed under his 
charge as \A^eighmaster. 

He still holds the position of Freight Agent and Weighmaster 
(4th Street Scales) at Altoona. The growth of business at this sta- 
tion since his incumbency has been remarkable, developing from 
rather an insignificant local station into one of the most important 
on the line. Recently, his duties have been considerablv enlarged 
by tlie opening of a transfer station, which is operated both day and 
night. 

BELLWOOD. 

W. B. HUMES. 

Six miles east of Altoona, snugly nestling in the Logan valley, 
is the beautiful village of Bellwood. with its wealth of pure air, 
pure water and delightful scenery. It is the junction point whereat 
the interchange of traffic between the Pennsylvania and Pennsyl- 
vania and Northwestern Railroads is effected. The freight agent 
at this point is William B. Plumes, who was born in Philadelphia 
on November 6, 1841. Mr. Humes attended the public schools 
of his native city until July, 1857, when he entered the employment 

125 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

of T. W. & J. A. Yost, manufacturers of children's carriages at 
214 Dock street. From there he entered the army, enhsting in 
Company C, 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers, better known to history 
and fame as Colonel E. D. Baker's ist California Regiment. Mr. 
Humes participated with the regiment in the ill-starred expedition 
which culminated in the disaster at Ball's Bluff, Va., on October 
21, 1861. With some two hundred members of the regiment he was 
made prisoner and taken to Richmond, wdiere he remained incar- 
cerated in Mayo's Tobacco Warehouse until February 22, 1862, 
when he was released. By reason of disability he was honorably 
discharged April 19, 1862. He subsequently engaged in business 
with J. H. Schenck & Son. On August 25, 1875, he entered the 
service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as a passenger brake- 
man on the New York Di\'ision. February 20, 1876, he was 
appointed a train agent and assigned to duty on the ^Middle Divi- 
sion with headquarters at Harrisburg. He served in that capacity 
until June 30, 1877, when the necessity for the train agencies 
having passed, the office w^as discontinued. July i, 1877, he was 
appointed passenger brakeman on the ^Middle Division and ran 
until April 20, 1878, when he entered the freight office at Hunting- 
don as a clerk. October i, 1885. he was appointed to his present 
position as Freight Agent at Bellwood. 



W. H. LOVELL.-'^ 

On Tanuarv i, 1900. there was placed on the retired list of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company one of its oldest employes, in point 
of service as well as of years, in the person of W'illiam Harrison 
Lovell. Not only was he a senior in the railroad service, but he is 
one of the few surviving men whose identification with the trans- 
portation business of the Commonwealth was co-incident with the 
opening of the pul)lic works. ^Ir. Lovell was born in German 
valley, near Newton Hamilton, Pa., Sepember 20, 1820 and re- 
ceived his name from \\'illiam Henry Harrison, President, who was 
a full cousin of his mother. 

When about twelve years old he began to drive mules on the 
canal, and at twenty- one was captain of the canal boat "Wyoming," 
a Pennsvlvania and Ohio Line boat, running between Hollidays- 
burg and Columbia. 



*Mr. Lovell died at Altoona. June 3 1902. 

126 




W. H. LOVELL. 

He left the canal in the fall of 1849 and entered the service of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as time-keeper at Alifflin Shops, 
under ]\'[r. Enoch Lewis. He remained at jNIifflin until October, 
1852, when he went to Duncansville, Pa., Avhere he was clerk to Mr. 
E. M. Jones, the agent. Later, when Air. Jones was transferred 
to the agency at Hollidaysburg, Mr. Lovell succeeded him as agent 
at Duncansville. He remained at Duncansville until the comple- 
tion of the Xewry Branch, when he was transferred to Newry 
as agent, remaining at Xewry until the fall of 1870, when he was 
transferred to Blairsville, succeeding Air. Jacob Zimmers as agent. 
He remained there until the spring of 1871, at which time the 
Butler Branch was completed to Butler, Pa., to which point he was 
transferred as agent l:)y the late Robert Xeilson, who was then 
superintendent of the \A^est Penn Division. He remained at Butler 
until 1876, when he was transferred to Altoona ticket office, and 
thence to the Altoona freight station, where he remained until re- 
tired by pensioning, January i, 1900, having completed more than 
fifty years' service with the Company. While at Duncansville, 



127 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

he was associated with Thomas A. Scott, Herman J- Lombaert 
and Robert Pitcairn, the latter being telegraph operator. Mr. 
Lovell has for man}- }ears been a member of the Presbyterian 
Church. 

HUXTIXGDON. 

A. ELLIOTT. 

Huntingdon is the county seat of the county of the same name 
whose rich river bottoms and fertile valleys have made it one of 
the most prosperous counties of the State. The town is beauti- 
fullv situated at the confluence of Standing Stone Creek and the 
Juniata River, the hills adjacent commanding views of superlative 
grandeur. The enterprise and energies of its people have made 
it in traffic importance on the Middle Division of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad second only to Harrisburg; added to that, it is the trans- 
fer point of the traffic coming to and from the Huntingdon and 
Broad Top Railroad. The latter road not only covers the extensive 
coal fields of the Ilroad Top region, but, connecting with the Bed- 
ford Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Mount Dallas, pen- 
etrates the Maryland coal fields at Cumberland. The interchange 
of freight at this point with the large local trade makes the freight 
agency a very active and busy one. The Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company's representative is Alexander Elliott. Mr. Elliott was 
born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, November 25, 1835. His 
ancestors came from England during the eighteenth century, his 
paternal grandfather settling in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where 
his father, Benjamin Elliott, was born in 1790, and from where he 
enlisted and served in the War of 1812. 

The early years of Alexander Elliott were spent in Indiana 
county. He was educated in the common schools of that count}', 
and at the Academy of New Castle, Pennsylvania. After spending 
two }'ears as a salesman in a general store in Westmoreland county 
he, in October, 1856, entered the service of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company as an assistant in the freight office at Indiana station 
by appointment of the late Col. Thomas A. Scott. In January, 
1859, he was transferred (also by Mr. Scott, who was then the 
General Superintendent) to Manor Station as Freight and Pas- 
senger Agent, and on June i, 1865, to Huntingdon, as Freight 
Agent. Since the latter date he has been a continuous resident of 
the borough, efficientl}- performing the duties of his office. Mr. 

12S 




W. W. FULLER, 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

Elliott has always taken an active and influential part in local affairs, 
working- for the welfare and improvement of the borough, in which 
he is deeply interested as one of its most extensive property owners. 
He has been elected at various times to borough offices, having 
served as Chief Burgess. Councilman and School Director, and 
also acted as Treasurer of a number of associations and organiza- 
tions, especially designed to promote public improvement. He has 
for thirtv vears been prominently connected with the Masonic 
fraternity, being a Past ]\Iaster, Past High Priest, Past Eminent 
Commander of Knights Templar, and for the past eleven years, 
has held the office of District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand 
Lodge of Pennsylvania for the counties of Huntingdon and Bed- 
ford, and part of lUair. He has been a member of the Presbyte- 
rian Church for over forty years. 

MOUNT UNION. 

W. W. FULLIiR. 

Alount Union is the second town in population in Hunting- 
don county. It is located at the east end of the main gate to the 
Alleghenies, and whilst surrounded by mountains and hills, is the 
seat of considerable manufacture. The products of its chair fac- 
tory and tanneries are eagerly sought after, and its flour has a com- 
manding place in the market. The East Broad Top narrow gauge 
railroad reaching out to the important town of Shirleysburg, the 
twin towns of Rockhill and Orbisonia, and the towns of Three 
Springs, Saltillo, Robertsdale and Shade Gap, all in Huntingdon 
county, has its terminus there, and from those points throws on to 
the Pennsylvania Railroad a paying traffic of the products of mines, 
mills and factories. At this station, William W. Fuller is the 
Agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Mr. Fuller was born near 
Ickesville, Saville township. Perry county, Pennsylvania, Novem- 
ber 6, 1837. He was unfortunate in the loss of his parents before 
he had reached his first birthday, and was left without even the 
tender interest which an elder brother or sister might have displayed 
had he possessed them. He was, however, brought up on a farm 
among relations, under the care of a kind and considerate uncle. 
Having previously accjuired what was then called a ''Free School" 
education, that is, a knowledge of the lower branches, with a smat- 
tering of geography and grammar, he was, upon attaining his 

131 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

seventeenth year, sent to tlie Central Academy, Airy View, near 
Port Royal, Juniata county, Pennsylvania. That institution was 
then a popular and flourishing boarding school, enjoying a noted 
patronage from this State, as well as many other States of the 
Republic. It was under the tutorship of Dr. David Wilson, sup- 
ported bv a strong faculty, whose reputations as instructors were 
known far and wide. In the spring of 1856, he returned to his 
old home and entered a select school established there, and under the 
tutorship of a voung graduate of Jefferson College. In the fall of 
the same vear, and when Ijut nineteen years old, he secured the 
position of Principal of the Port Royal schools. Thereafter, by 
alternating between teaching and going to school, he was enabled 
to further educate himself by attending "Markleville Normal Insti- 
tute" at Markleville, and "]\It. Dempsey Academ}-," at Landisburg. 
Both schools were in Perry county. He closed his school days 
at the Millersville State Normal School. For nearly nine years 
he engaged in teaching, being successively Principal of the Port 
Royal, Duncannon, Thompsontown and JMillerstown Public Schools. 
During the summer months of two of those years he was engaged 
in teaching select schools at his home and at Newport. On March 
5, 1865, he gave up teaching, and two days later entered the service 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, as assistant to W. J. Jones, 
Agent at JMillerstown Station. He developed so rapidly in his new 
line of business that he was, on December 1, 1866, appointed Freight 
and Passenger Agent at Thompsontown, in which position he con- 
tinued until April i, 1876, when he was promoted to be Freiglit 
Agent at INIount P'nion. On April i, 1885, the duties of Passenger 
Agent at that station were combined with those of Freight Agent, 
and laid upon him For over a third of a century his railroad ser- 
vice has been faithfully performed to the advantage of the Company 
and credit to himself. In all that period he has enjoyed but four 
vacations of one week each, with an occasional day off, and has 
enjoyed the unbroken confidence of his superiors and fellow em- 
ployes. Although he keeps a close watch on all the minut^e of the 
agency and attends specially to all the accounts, yet he can be found 
almost daily assisting in handling all freight work. He takes per- 
missable pride in saying that he "can do with a freight truck as much 
as the Irishman who said he could do anything with his spade but 
shave a man." 

His calling as a teacher gave a very agreeable bias to his mind, 

132 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

and has made him the hfe-loiiL;- friend of the teacher, the educator 
and the lover of Hterature, many of his most cherished friends 
belono-ing- to those classes. In all his busy years of railroad life 
he has never departed from adding to his intellectual advancement. 
For forty-two years he has courted the Pluses, and in the frag- 
ments of time has produced some sweet verse. He has deservedly 
been crowned with the name of "The Poet of the Juniata Valley." 
Among the more notable of his poems which have attracted atten- 
tion are : "The Eighth Wonder of the World ;" "Jack's Narrows ;" 
"The Horse Shoe Bend;" "The Limited;" "The Youths of Fair 
Saville;" "The Fox Chase on Sunday;" "The \'ale of the Juniata;" 
"At Nicaragua's Shores ;" "Hazel ;" "The Boatman ;" "The Elaine ;" 
and "Our Elms." His style of writing is correct, and on classical 
lines. Fie seems to derive great pleasure in singing the praises of 
the great corporation with which he has been so long and honor- 
ably connected. 

HARRISBURG. PA. 

THO-MAS L. WALLACE. 
W. L. FRY. 

Harrisburg comprises the centre of iron manufacture on the 
lower Susquehar.na. This, together with kindred and other indus- 
tries, located within its borders, the agricultural and mining wealth 
of Dauphin county, the rich products of Cumberland, York and 
Lebanon counties, seeking its markets and the political activity of 
a capital, makes its mercantile life a busy one. and its railroad trans- 
portation interests of great importance. Lying, as the city does, 
across the pathways of the great valleys reaching from New York 
to New CJrleans, railroads constructed on the north and south lines 
intersect the great Pennsylvania line from East to West, causing 
an interchange of traffic of large dimensions. Competition in trans- 
portation is verv acute, and the shrewdest men are required to 
enter into it. The business of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
for manv vears was conducted by Thomas L. Wallace. 

On' January i, 1898, ^Ir. Wallace laid down the Agency with 
its unceasing cares and great responsibilities, and assumed quieter 
and less wearing duties with the Division Freight Agent's Depart- 
ment. The retiracv of Mr. Wallace from the Harrisburg agency 
after forty years in the freight service of the Company, thirty- 

133 




THOMAS L. WALLACE. 

eight years of which he served as Agent, is an occurrence to he 
noted ; for such a service for such a length of time points to fidel- 
ity, faithfulness, intelligence and confidence as eminently necessary 
qualities to achieve success. Mr. Wallace having- been born in 
Clearfield, Pa., September 8, 1837, was not cjuite twenty years of age 
when he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at 
Hollidaysburg in August. 1857. In May, 1859. he was transferred 
to the Freight Ofiice at Harrisburg as a clerk to John A. Cannon, 
and when Mv. Cannon resigned as Agent in November of that yeai 
Mr. Wallace, although but a little over twenty-two years of age, was 
appointed to the vacancy. From thence every movement for the 
advancement of the freight interests of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company and its controlled and operated lines in Harrisburg and 
vicinity either originated with him or had his most hearty co-opera- 
tion. The business that grew up under his hands and eyes was in- 
tricate in character, requiring constant watching and delicate hand- 
ling. During the war the vast stores of the Government, including 



134 




W. L. FRY. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

cattle, horses, grain, ha}' and feed, that had to be handled at Harris- 
burg threw a volume of business upon his care which cannot be 
appreciated to-day. The direction of the operations of the Freight 
Department had not then, nor for many years afterward, been 
concentrated as it is to-day, and in consequence there was a large 
latitude and a broad discretion allowed the Agent. In the wise use 
of that latitude and discretion Mr. Wallace so conducted the busi- 
ness of his station that hundreds of thousands of dollars which 
otherwise would have been lost to the Company flowed into its cofifers. 
Polite, kind, energetic, his soul seemed wrapped up in his desires 
to earn money for his employers, and that he accomplished it in 
no small degree is so well known that repetition of the fact is 
hardly necessary. The interchange with other roads and lines dur- 
ing his administration grew to enormous proportions. The iron, 
coal, live stock and lumber which passed in interchange with the 
"Reading" system was very heavy, and required the closest watch 
on rates and charges to secure the best results. For years he 
collected all the charges on the live stock from the \\ est destined 
to Xew York, and all on the bituminous coal for manufacturing 
purposes in the valley of the Schuylkill. At the same time the inter- 
ests of the merchants and manufacturers which were being devel- 
oped around him were receiving his closest attention. It is impos- 
sible to give in detail the business which he managed so well, but 
when it is told that he collected and accounted for a sum of money 
approximating sevent_\'-five millions of dollars, without entailing 
the loss of one cent to anvone, some faint understanding can be had 
of what he was doing those many years. 

Throughout those years he was characterized by his kindly anc^ 
gentle manners, and Christian virtues. His charity w^as boundless^ 
and his confidence in his fellow man unfaltering. He never lost, 
patience with the most trying customer, or turned down a wayward 
employe. His whole life seemed to be uplifting. For sixteen years 
I sat by him in the ofiice and never once heard an impatient or 
improper word from his mouth, or saw him act but in full accord^ 
ance with morality, sobriety, honestv and truth. His fidelitv to the 
interests intrusted to his care was a religion with him, and was a 
splendid guide to the young men who served under him, and who 
by reason of that training have since been advanced in the service. 

Air. Wallace was succeeded by Mr. George D. Ogden, who 
conducted the business with such marked ability that he was pro-- 

137 



FREICxHT AGENCIES. 

moted January 14, 1901, to be Division Freight Agent. Mr, 
Ogden was succeeded by W. L. Fry. 

Among the man}- men who have won promotion on tlie Penn- 
svlvania Railroad by faithful, conscientious and intelligent service,, 
none stand higher in the esteem of the management than Mr. Fry,, 
He was born at Coburn, Centre county, Pa., September 19, 1851. 
His elementary education -was received in the public schools of hij; 
native countv, after receiving which he entered Bucknell Univer- 
sity, at Lewisburg, Pa., from which he was graduated. He entered 
the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company on April i. 1873, 
as a clerk in the Freight Station at Sunbury, Pa. In 1874, lie was 
transferred to the position of assistant weighmaster at Nanticoke, 
Pa. From that time until 1885 he served successively as clerk a'c 
the Shamokin scales, where he inaugurated the way-billing of coal 
direct from the mines, and Chief Clerk at the Sunbury Agency. On 
January i, 1885 he was promoted to be Agent at Lewisburg, Pa., and 
on July 23, 1893, to be Freight Agent at Williamsport, Pa. The 
vast lumber and large manufacturing interests of the latter city 
in their relations to transportation were handled with such ability 
and tact by Mr. Fry that when the more important post of Freight 
Agent at Harrisburg was to be filled the selection naturally settleff 
upon him, and he was promoted to it, entering upon his duties 
there on January 14, 1901. 

BUFFALO. 

ROBERT S. BKATTY. 

Buffalo is one of the most important cities in the United States. 
Its wonderful poAver, derived from Niagara Falls ; its great steel 
plant ; its elevators and coal docks ; its splendid harJDor and central 
position ; its strong banks, superb parks and the incomparable 
Niagara River, have made it a potential factor in the industrial 
and social development of the country. Thirty railroads enter the 
city, and these, with the lake trans])ortation companies, have been 
developing the city until at the present time there is possibly no 
other section of the United States which shows so steady and 
rapid advancement on lines of permanent prosperity. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad Companv has taken a strong posi- 
tion in Buft'alo, and is rapidlv increasing its alreadv large facilities. 
Its freight interests are looked after by Mr. Robert S. Beatty. 

138 




ROBERT S. BEATTY. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

The career of Mr. Beatty has not been meteoric, flashing l^ril- 
liantly across the business skies only to be lost in the mysterious 
depths, but has been steadily a forward one ; slow, perhaps, but: 
sure, and its successes must find their origin in both strain and 
temperament. How much difference of opinion there may be re- 
garding the theological correctness of the religious views of the 
blended sons of Scottish heights and Irish heather, there can be no 
question that the American scion of Scotch-Irish stock is painstak- 
ing, tenacious and conscientious. 'Twas from that stock he sprung., 
He was born at Armagh, Indiana county, Pennsylvania, February 
24, 1855, and was educated in the country schools of that vicinity 
and at Jefferson Academy at Steubenvillc, Ohio. He entered the 
service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in March, i'875, as 
a clerk at Derry Station on the Pittsburgh Division, from whence 
he was transferred to Pittsburgh as shop clerk, and subsequently 
to Pittsljurgh Transfer as general clerk; in June, 1885, sent to 
Mantua Transfer as general clerk, and in September, 1887, appointed 
Agent at Engelside. In 1894, when all the stations on the Xew 
York Division between the Zoological Garden and Frank ford Junc- 
tion were placed wdthin the jurisdiction of the agency at Ger- 
mantown Junction, he was appointed agent to supervise them. Sub- 
sec[uently, all the agencies on the Chestnut Hill and Cresheim 
Branches were added to his jurisdiction, supervision and care. On 
January 14, 1901, he was appointed Freight Agent at Buffalo, N. 
Y. He was Third \"ice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Department of the Young ■Men's Christian Association of Phila- 
delphia, and always ready, willing and enthusiastic in promoting the 
work of the Department. His tireless energy, together with his 
sunny nature and overflowing charity, were no small factors in bring- 
ing it to the high standard of success which it has attained. 

The personality of Mr. Beatty is attractive. He is nearly six 
feet two inches tall, weighs about 240 pounds, and his appearance 
is commanding. Gentle of speech, kind of heart and charitable oi 
disposition, makes him a charming person, whether in the pursuit of 
business or of pleasure, and always a welcome guest in the social 
circle. \Mthal, he is possessed of a modesty — some call it diffi- 
dence — which makes him shrink from public attention, public 
prominence, or applause. This latter quality, however, is not the 
result of any weakness of character, or a desire to shrink from 
assuming proper responsibilities or the performance of proper duties, 

141 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

for, Avhen occasion demands it, he is fearlessly aggressive and un- 
movable in his stand, in whatever direction he may consider to be 
the right one. Though generous to a fault, he has none of the 
elements of profligacy in him. With deep religious convictions he 
is not intolerant. In his devotion to his Company's interests he 
so conducts its affairs that he makes no enemies and is always care- 
ful not to magnify its competitors' importance by denunciation or 
detraction. On the contrary, he recognizes that his is the important 
business and, in consec|uence, has no time to spare to detract from 
its successful pursuit by talking, good or bad, about that of any 
one else. 

COLUMBIA. 

C. S. MURRAY. 

Columbia, situated on the left bank of the Susquehanna river, 
about 29 miles below Plarrisburg, although a minor city of Pennsyl- 
vania, is a point of more than average importance in its relation to 
internal travel and commerce. Prior to the construction of the dam 
for supplying the Susquehanna canal with water, the river scenery 
thereabouts was of noble grandeur in its wild picturesqueness. 
The completion and maintenance of the barrier in the stream, how- 
ever, did not eliminate that feature of the locality's beauty for it 
formed a placid lake, which, viewed as a part of the splendid per^ 
spective to be had from ''Chicjues' Rock," a rugged clilT rising* 
almost perpendicularly from the river at the western limits of the 
town, adds an artistic touch to natin-e's canvas. The incomparable 
scenery of the Susquehanna finds in the view from that cliff its 
best expression, and brings the visitor, as he stands there and 
gazes in contemplation on Columbia and its gem-like settings, into 
close touch with the inspiration which caused the Poet Campbell, 
in describing another spot higher up the stream, to sing : — 

"A valley from the river shore withdrawn 
Was Albert's home, tvv-o quiet woods between, 
Whose lofty verdure overlooked his lawn ; 
And waters to their resting-place serene 
Came fresh'ning and reflecting all the scene ; 
(A mirror in the depths of flowery shelves) ; 
So sweet a spot of earth, I ween, 
Have guessed some congregaton of the elves 
To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves." 

142 




C. S. MURRAY. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

Jacob L. Gossler, in his delightful monograph entitled "An 
Old Turnpike Road," published by him in 1888 for private distri- 
bution, speaks thus of the town: "]\Iy native town, Columbia, to 
which I have so often alluded, is charmingly situated on the eastern 
bank of the Susquehanna, here broadening to over a mile in width, 
and assuming a lake-like appearance. There are high hills once 
crowned with luxuriant woods, at either extremity, between which 
the town securely nestles, extending back from the river, and grad- 
ually ascending to a broad table-land studded with tine and well- 
tilled farms, comfortable dwellings ,and the immense barns so 
common throughout Lancaster county ; a rich agricultural country, 
occupied bv well-to-do and intelligent farmers, with here and there 
a white spire and a pretty village." 

But it is not to the scenic, poetic or romantic, combined or 
alone, that Columbia is indebted for the place it occupies in the 
Commonwealth it adorns. Xature, so prodigal in the bestowa! 
of scenic effects, was none the less so in the distribution of material 
for prosaic prosperity. Gossler shows the results in 1888 when 
he describes the town "as flourishing with upwards of ten thousand 
inhabitants, a railway centre and the terminus of two canals ; has 
numerous furnaces, rolling-mills and factories within its limits ; 
fine stores, pure water, good streets, gas and electric lights, three 
newspapers, many churches, excellent schools and all the modern 
improvements." The town has advanced along those lines with 
the passenger trolley, telephone and automobile added. The pop- 
ulation is now over 13.000. In the early days of Pennsylvania the 
best crossing of the Susquehanna river in the line of communication 
between the North and the South was found there. It has ever 
since been a prominent station on the thoroughfare of Americart 
advancement. At the close of the Revolutionary \\'ar, and before the 
records of the eighteenth century had passed into the history oS 
the ages, the tide of emigration which set in from the seaboard to 
the Carolinas and A'irginia and its western territory, crossed the 
river at that point. AAdien the nineteenth century opened it found 
that "Wright's Ferry," which had been established in 1730, and 
known the wdde world over, was inadequate to the demands upor. 
it. and that its terminii had dropped its name the one on the right 
bank of the river becoming Wrightsville, the other, on the left 
bank, Columbia, as they had grown by that time into settlements 
of note. Emigrants at times would reach the Ferry in such num- 

145 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

bers that it would require several days to pass them and their 
belono;ings over the river. The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turn- 
pike Road, the first road of that character of any length made in 
America, completed in 1794, was extended to Columbia by the 
Lancaster and Susquehanna Turnpike Company in 1803. The 
travel over these roads made it necessary for the erection of the 
Columbia Bridge, which was completed in 1814, to take care of it. 
The situation of Columbia and its rich agricultural and mineral 
surroundings, commanded the attention of the home seekers and 
it scon became a popular and populous settlement, whilst the dis- 
covery of the great deposit of hematite ore in the neighborhood 
created a manufacturing centre of great value. These natural ad- 
vantages, garnered by an intelligent and industrious population, 
made the trade of the locality one to be sought for by transporters. 
The rapid development of the country demonstrating the inadequacy 
of the then existing methods of transportation, the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania, in order to retain the flow of trade and trave) 
within and through its territorial limits, adopted a system of rail- 
roads and canals and made Columl^ia the converging point, which 
became and continued for many years to be the most important trans- 
portation point in the State for interchange and transshipment. 
The entree of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in 1834 watr 
followed by the York and Wrights ville in 1840, and tlie Columbia 
Branch of the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mt. Joy and Lancaster in 
1851. A few years subsequent to the latter date the Columbia and 
Port Deposit was added to the rail facilities of the town, and in 1857, 
through its leases and purchases the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany became the sole transportation factor in its prosperity. As 
Columbia leads 'all other towns in Lancaster countv as a railroad 
centre, so it does in the manufacture of iron and its products. 
Before the State was gridironed with railroads Columbia was rec- 
ognized as a mart of value. The traffic of the Susquehanna river, 
consisting of millions of feet of lumber and thousands of tons of 
produce, grain, flour and whisky, concentrated there, and thence 
distril)uted to the eastern seaboard through the cities of Philadelphin 
and Baltimore. The completion of the canals and railroads increased 
the volume of the business. Stage coaches, Conestoga wagons, 
canal boats, ])ackets, river rafts and arks threw a floating popula- 
tion into the town, which caused a restless activity in its streets, 
and along its levees and wharves. The busy scenes at the basin, 

146 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

where hundreds of canal boats concentrated preparatory to passing 
through the outlet lock or to unload or transship their lading, or 
in the inn yards, as th.e caravans of Conestoga wagon teams drove 
in. or the raftsmen congregated to assort their kits, have been shifted 
to the tracks and great yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad, over 
and through which the traffic of a continent is handled. A glimps.^? 
of the magnitude of the -traffic can be had in viewing the number oi 
cars wdiich passed through these yards east and west on the main line 
and to and from the branches, during the year 1898, the aggregate 
being 879,991 cars. 

The local business is made up principally of coal, iron, silk and 
lace, the coal being brought to Columbia in large quantities by 
canal and stored and later loaded on cars and distributed to points 
east and west. The iron business is now confined to the manufac- 
ture of skelp and merchant bar iron. Most of the furnaces wdiich 
made the Columbia district famous, and at one time numbered thir- 
teen, are things of the past, but four remaining, — one at Wrights- 
ville, two at Chickies and one at Watts. 

The four rolling mills employ 1,000 hands, the silk mills 1,000, 
the lace mill 200, and there is in the employ of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad about i,ooo men. Other principal industries are the man- 
ufacture of stoves, employing 200, and the Grey Iron Xovelty 
Works, employing 100 hands, respectively. 

Mr. Charles S. Murray, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's 
Agent, is well adapted to look after his employers" interests at that 
point. He is a gentleman of marked intelligence and altability, and 
infused with the spirit of progress which distinguishes the employes 
of the Company, his time, energies and abilities have been devoted to 
his duties. ^Ir. Murray was Ijorn at Carlisle, Pa., October 15, 1839, 
and received his education from private tutors and in the public 
schools of that town. After leaving school, he took up the study 
of dentistr}-, but before completing it he entered the service of the 
x\dams Express Company at Philadelphia. Acquiring a taste for 
the transportation business, he lost much interest in his selected 
profession, but after remaining some time with the express com- 
pany, he resigned, and returned to the study of dentistry. In 1855, 
he established an office in Newport, Pa., where he practiced his 
profession for a numl)er of years. In 1869, a W'estern fever carried 
him to Mexico, Missouri, but discovering that his emigration was 
a mistake, he returned east before the close of the vear. The desire 



147 



FREICxHT AGENCIES. 

to enter railroad life took possession of him again, and applying fo^ 
a position on the Pennsylvania Railroad, he was appointed to the 
Agency at Christiana and entered upon his duties February i, 1870. 
On June i, 1872 ,he was advanced by transfer to the agency a1 
jNIiddletown, and on ]\Iarch i. 1880. was promoted to the agency 
at Columbia. 

LANCASTER. PA. 

K. K. DAN'IS. 

Lancaster City has a strong individuality. Its wealth is gener- 
ously distributed among its people, who excel in intellectual force 
and form a hospitable and hearty democracy wherein capital and 
labor march with unanimity of purpose side by side in perfect 
harmony. It is the comity seat of a district, the agricultural 
development of which reaching the highest point yet attainable 
yields a productiveness rarelv ec(ualled. The domestic leaf tobacco 
trade of the United States has its chief depot there and the re- 
quirements of its agricultural surroundings have created a large and 
prosperous live stock market within its limits. Diversified and 
successful manufacturing establishments are numerous. Beautiful 
and substantial homes abound and the mercantile houses are man}- in 
number, large in the extent of their dealings, and rival in the spirit 
of commercial enterprise those of the larger cities. Two hundred 
thousand people having their wants supplied through the medium- 
ship of those places of business activity makes rail transportation 
both safe and profitable and the carrying companies doing business 
in the city have kept pace with the latter's progressive spirit in 
supplying facilities and representatives to meet the wants. In the 
Freight Agency of the Penns}lvania Railroad E. K. Davis is in- 
stalled as Freight Agent, fitting to a nicety the requirements of the 
position. Mr. Davis was born near Intercourse, Lancaster county, 
j^'ennsylvania, October 11, 1S36, and was educated in the public 
schools of that county. He entered business in 1852, and was en- 
gaged in clerical, mercantile and other pursuits until July i, 1869, 
when he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
as Freight and Ticket Agent at Christiana. On December i. 1869, 
he was transferred to Coatesville as Freight Agent, and on July i. 
!'*^7I. was appointed combined Ticket and Freight Agent at that 

148 




F. K. DAVIS. 

station, where he continued to lill the duties with satisfaction to the 
C^jmpany and its patrons until September i, 1891, when he was 
r i-omoted to be Freight Agent at Lancsater. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

F. H. MEVERS. 

The Philadelphia Freight Agency of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company is the largest and most important single one in the world 
as to territorial extent, amount of charges collected and the great 
variety of commercial interests with which it is in contact. The 
lerritorv covered by it is practically all the city south of Vine street 

149 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

from river to river, and west of the river to Fifty-third street, in- 
dvAing the territory operated by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and 
Baitimore Railroad Company. All of the freight stations and em- 
ployes in that area come within its jurisdiction. Some estimate of 
tlie' extent of the business transacted in the agency may be gleaned 
from the facts that the average number of cars handled monthly is, 
:n round numbers, 50.000, containing 800,000 tons of freight, whilst 
the average monthly collections exceed one million of dollars. 

Frank H. Me}ers was appointed Agent to succeed L. ><. 
V/alton, deceased. This was a well earned promotion and a mer- 
ged recognition of the service:^ uf a gentleman well equipped to 
perform the vast responsibilities of the position. For over 30 years 
IMr. Mevers has been in charge of the vast freighting interests, both 
foreign and domestic, of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 
the Washington Avenue \Miarf District. The export and impoit 
trade of the Port of Philadelphia, handled in connection with Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company's lines, passed under his eyes and to a 
great extent his direction. So thoroughly conversant is he with 
all the intricacies of that service that problems in connection there- 
with difificult of solution have been invariably sent him to solve, 
with unfailing satisfactory results. With the large manu picturing 
inrerests in the district in their relation to transportation he is eq.iall^- 
well advised. His services to the Company have not, hoA\'ever, 
been confined to the duties of the position. During the Centennial 
year, Mr, Meyers rendered valuable service in handling the foreign 
exhibits to and from the Exhibition without any delay to them or 
the regular business of the district, and without increasing his 
otnce expenses. His work in that direction entered largely into the 
success of that historic event. He has been appointed on many 
general committees to solve special transportation subjects, and was 
a member of that one having in charge the subject of establishing a 
transfer station between Philadelphia and New York, and which 
resulted in the construction and organization of Mantua Transfer. 

INIr. Meyers was l:)orn in the old district of Spring Garden, 
Philadelphia, February 6. 1844, ^n^^ educated in the public schools. 
In i860 he was advanced from the Hancock Grammar School to 
the High School. After one term of study in the latter he entered 
commercial life as a bookkeeper. On April i, 1863, he entered the 
service at Washins'ton Avenue AA'harf as manifest clerk in Leech 



J50 




F. H. MEYERS. 




WILLIAM HAMMERSLEY. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

& Co.'s office, having as contemporaries in the office, Robert W. 
Smith, now Treasurer of the Penns^•lvania Raih-oad Companjv, 
James S. Swartz, present Treasurer of the Internailonai Xa\igalion 
Company, and the late John Wdiittaker. After fiUing various I'osi- 
tions in the office, ]\Ir. Meyers, on June i, 1867, when Leech i^ Co.'s 
transfer station at that point was abandoned, was placed in charge 
of the west-bound business, and on Alay i, 1870, placed in charge of 
the district, which has grown in extent and value with the ]>assing 
years. July 19, 1900, promoted to be Agent at Philadelpliia, and on 
October i, 190 1, he was appointed to the additional ageucv of the 
Philadelphia, ^^^ilmington and Baltimore Railroad Civ^npany at 
Broad and \\^ashington Avenue. ]\Ir. jMeyers is an influential 
member of the Pennsylvania Railroad Department of the ^"oung 
]\Ien's Christian Association of Philadelphia. 

BROAD AND WASHIXGTOX AVENUE DISTRICT. 
WILLI a:\[ ha:mmerslev. 

\\'illiam Hammersley, the Chief Clerk in charge of the Inroad 
and Washington Avenue District, is well adapted for the very tr}ing 
position which he fills with so much credit and grace. K<'enn'.ss 
of perception, suavity of manner, and smoothness of speech enable 
him to meet daily the hundreds who seek the office and supply him 
the force for rapidly transacting the many-sided business which 
environs him. He was born on the 12th of July, i860, and educated 
in the common schools of Philadelphia. On ^Nlay 10. 1873, he 
entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as mes- 
senger boy in the freight ofiice at Thirteenth and Market stiels, 
Philadelphia. On August 14, 1874. he was transferred to the ^^'■a^h- 
ington Avenue \\diarf station and served in the district through all 
the positions of a freight agency from messenger boy to chief clerk 
in charge of Federal street station.. On July i. 1883. he was selects I 
from the latter position by ^Iv. William J. Latta. General Agent, 
as his Chief Clerk. Pie served in that capacity with marked ability 
tmtil November 8. 1899. when Mr. Latta having resigned, the Gen- 
eral AgencA- was largely absorbed by the Philadelphia Terminal 
Division. From then until July 19, 1900, he acted as Special Agent 
for Mr. D. H. Lovell. Superintendent of that Division. L^pon the 
latter date he was promoted to be Chief Clerk, Philadelphia Agency, 

155 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

under :Mr. F. H. Meyers, at Xo. 8 Walnut street. On October r. 
looi, he was appointed Chief Clerk in charge of the Broad and 
Washington Avenue District. 

He was a school director in the Twenty-fourth Section of the 
First District of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Committee in charge 
of the largest school in the section, and ranked among the prominent 
directors of the district. Mr. Hammersley takes a deep interest in. 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Department, Young Men's Christ a''; 
Association of Philadelphia, and is Chairman of its Library Com- 
mittee. To him is largely due the securing of the splendid librafv 
attached to that institution, and with the aid of the librarian, the 
success of its administration. 

WASHINGTON A\'ENUE WHARF DISTRICT. 

CH.VRLES C. KIXXEY. 

Charles Clinton Kinney. Chief Clerk in charge of the Wash- 
ington Avenue Wharf District, was born at Circleville, Pickaway 
county, Ohio, November 8, i860. In 1865, the family moved to 
Harrisburg, Pa., where Air. Kinney entered the public schools, 
which he attended until he was fourteen years of age. At the end 
of that time, he obtained employment in the insurance office of John 
F. Eaton and subsequenth' located himself in the book store of 
George Bergner. On the ist of January, 1878, he entered the ofifice 
of the "Harrisburg Telegraph" as a printer's apprentice and served 
four years learning the trade. He finished his trade on the 21st of 
January, 1882, commended by his employers as one of the best 
"jours" that ever graduated from the office. On January 23, 1882, 
he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at 
the Lancaster freight station as a clerk. Passing through all the 
grades of the service in that office, he reached the Chief Clerkship 
March 24. 1884.. C)n May i. 1884, he was promoted to be Chief 
Clerk, Kensington District, Philadelphia. ( )n July 6, 1892, as As- 
sistant Superintendent, ^^lantua Transfer. On January 15, 1902, he 
was appointed to his present position. 

He has acquired a mastery of the many and varied transporta- 
tion problems that of necessity presented themselves in the positions 
in which he has been employed. He is a very active meml)er of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Department of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association, and to him is due the credit for the high order of 

156 




CHARLES C. KINNEY. 




D. R. RICHARDSON. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

entertainments ^^•hich, for the past eight years, have been a very 
attractive feature of Philadelphia's winter amusements. On his 
shoulders has devolved the labor of providing a weekly bill of high- 
class amusement fare, for the winter months, at once uncostly, clean, 
Avholesome and easily digested. The work has been well done, and 
he has displayed an ability as an amusement purveyor to be envied 
bv anvone. As Chairman of the Base Ball Committee of the De- 
partment, he has developed one of the best, if not the best, strictly 
amateur teams in the State, and has given the patrons of the grounds 
at Fifty-second street as fine exhibitions of that sport as could be de- 
sired. Temperate in his life, niode.^t in his deportment, conscientious 
in the discharge of his duty, earnest and faithful almost to a fault, he 
has gone forward from one position to another, until to-day he ranks 
in the knowledge of practical railroad work with the very best of the 
younger men in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. 

KENSINGTON DISTRICT. 

D. R. RICHARDSON. 

The Kensington District practically covers all the territory 
north of Vine street to the mouth of Frankford creek, west from the 
river Delaware to Eighth street, thence out Eighth street to the 
line of the Connecting Railroad. It embraces the River Front 
Railroad with Canal and Commerce Street Branches, the Kensington 
Branch, the Westmoreland Street Branch, the Kensington and Tioga 
Railroad, the Frankford Creek Branch and Fairhill Railroad. Large 
and commodious stations are scattered throughout the District and 
named Kensington, Shackamaxon. Commerce Street, Somerset Street, 
Tioga and Richmond Street, and Fairhill. The District is the great 
manufacturing territory of Philadelphia, producing a million tons 
of freight annually to the Pennsylvania Railroad. David R. Rich- 
ardson was appointed to the Agency April 7, 1900, succeeding Ham- 
ilton ]Markley, deceased. 

Air. Richardson was born in Pittsburgh. Pa., in 1855, and 
attended the public schools in that city, the University of West \"iv- 
ginia at jMorgantown for two years, and finally was graduated in 
the commercial department of the Pittsburgh Central High School 
in the class of 1877. He entered the service of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad Company at Walnut Street Freight Station, July, 1877, 

i6r 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

and after serving- in various clerical positions was promoted to be 
Chief Clerk to Mr. L. N. Walton, Freight Agent, July, 1892. ^h. 
Richardson is an affable gentleman, wide-awake to the commercial 
necessities of his new position and having all the elements within 
himself to do so, bids fair to make a higher mark in the service of 
the Company. 

GERMANTOWN JUNCTION. 

ROUERT L. FRANKLIN. 

The importance of (xermantown Junction as a growirig" c.itre 
for handling a valuable part of the ever increasing freight trah'ic 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in the city of Philadelphi.i 
is generallv recognized. Such growth is due to the indristi^al and 
commercial conditions which have brought that localitv- into such 
prominence. For years the tendency of manufacture and Lrade has 
been to develop in that direction, until at the present time there is 
possiblv no other section of the city of Philadelphia which shows 
so steady and rapid advancement, on lines of permanvUt prosperity. 
It must be understood that Germantown Junction is the head(;uarters 
of that district, so important to transportation interests, that is 
bounded by a line beginning at Girard avenue and the Schuylkill 
river, thence along that river to the Wissahickou creek, to the 
IMontgomerv county line, to Tacony creek, to Frankiord creek, to 
Kensington avenue, to Front street, to Susquehanna a\enue. to 
Broad street, to Girard avenue, thence to the Schuylkill tiver. Ter- 
ritorial! v. it comprises more than one-fourth the area of die city of 
Philadelphia. It embraces Engelside, Ridge Avenue, Di:iinond 
Street, Germantown Junction and North Penn Junction, stations on 
the New York Division, and all the stations on the Chestnut Hill 
and Cresheim Branches. It was but a few years ago when llie 
freight traffic offering or being handled within that area was incou- 
secjuential. To-day, however, the principal lumber, coal and doiiies- 
tic grain business in the city is being done there. Larg? industrial 
establishments for the making of almost all the varied articles of 
manufacturing product have grown up, as if l\v magic; the great 
brewing interests of the city are located there and have developed 
to so great an extent that an internal railroad system has become a 
vital ])art of the facilities for handling tlie traffic at Engelside. 

162 




R. L. FRANKLIN. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

The rapid building up of property, both along residential and indus- 
trial lines on the Chestnut Hill and Cresheim Branches has also 
caused a large and valuable freight traffic to be established. 

The Freight Agent in the District is Robert Leighton Frank- 
lin, who was born in Lancaster, Pa., October 31, 1862. He is a son 
of the late Hon. Thomas Emlen Franklin, a leading member of the 
Bar, and Attorney General of Pennsylvania, under Governor John- 
ston. His grandfather, Walter Franklin, was a prominent jurist 
of the same State, and its Attorney General under Governor Snyder, 
from July 9. 1809, to October 2, 1810. ^Ir. Franklin was educated 
along collegiate lines. Upon leaving school he chose the railroad 
business for his life's work, and although surrounded by elegance 
and refinement in his home and social life, he turned from more 
fascinating lines of endeavor, and entered the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road service as an ordinary \\'arehouseman at the Lancaster Freight 
Agency in the summer of 1882. Diligently, day by day, for eleven 
months he trundled a truck and assisted in loading and unloading 
freight cars, thus acquiring by actual experience, the foundation 
of railroad knowledge on commercial lines. In 1883 he Avas sent 
by William J. Latta to the way-bill room at Seventeentli and Market 
streets, Philadelphia, to learn classification, rates and way-billing. 
In 1884 he was transferred to the Kensington Agency as general 
clerk, schooling himself in accounting and the administrative details 
of a large agency. On September i, 1885, he was promoted to the 
chief clerkship of Shackamaxon Freight Station, one of the more 
important sub-agencies in Philadelphia, and placed in charge of its 
large less-than-carload traffic and carload deliveries in yard and on 
numerous private sidings located on the River Front Railroad and 
Canal Street Branch. He conducted the business with so much 
credit to himself and satisfaction to the management, that when it 
became necessary to reorganize and elevate the standard of the 
freight business of Washington, he was selected as the Freight Agent 
of that place, entering upon his duties June i, 1893. The high 
standard to which that station has advanced, and the estimation in 
which it is held by the community and the Company, is almost whollv 
due to his unrelaxing eflrorts. His successful management of that 
station won him his promotion to the more important position at 
Germantown Junction, and he entered upon his duties January 14, 
1901. 

165 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 
PIER 1 6, NEW YORK. 

JOHN T. ROBB. 

Pier 1 6, North River, New York, is one of the most important 
freight stations in the Pennsylvania Railroad's system in the me- 
tropolis. Adjoining the Company's most important ferry at Coiirt- 
landt street, it occupies a prominent position in its relation to the 
commercial interests of the city. At this Pier freights are received 
from New York Division, Walnut Street Wharf and the Kensington 
District, Philadelphia, a few points on the Amboy Division, in car 
loads, Grav's Ferrv. on tlie Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore 
Railroad, and from points on the New York and Long Branch Rail- 
road. Freights are forwarded from it to the same territory with the 
addition of that of the Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad and 
Baltimore on the P. W. & B. Railroad. The largest and most 
valuable of its receipts are the products of the mills in the Kensing- 
ton District, and consists principally of textiles, many car loads of 
which arrive daily hot from the looms. The Pier is in charge of 
John T. Robb as Freight Agent. His love and aptitude for the 
business is inherited, his father having become connected with the 
old New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company in the trans- 
portation of freight between New York and Jersey City by trucks as 
early as 1838. Mr. Robb was born in Newark, N. J., November 13, 
1839, and his school career was limited to an education in the 
Academy of that citw In 1857 he became associated with his father 
and continued with him until 1865, when, upon the introduction of 
the float system and the retiracy of the elder from business, he be- 
came Freight Agent at Pier 16. During the 37 years he has occu- 
pied that position, he has by his careful and constant attention to 
the business of the Pier in all its details, his consistent and persistent 
economy of administration within the line of good service carved for 
himself a place in the highest rank of efficient and invaluable 
Freight Agents. 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

^^•. w. r.owiK. 

Washington City, with its imposing public buildings, its wide 
and well shaded streets and avenues, beautiful parks, splendid resi- 

]66 




JOHN T. ROBB. 




W. W. BOWIE. 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

deuces and temperate climate, is the pride of the i\merican patriot, 
and the deHght of the foreign visitor. In perfect harmony, the 
historic Potomac flowing by, the Virginia hills overlooking, and 
Maryland's fertile fields surrounding, form a frieze to the picture. 
Within its boundaries dwell the Executive, Legislative and Judicial 
dignitaries of the central government, the representatives of the 
various countries of the world, and the largest aggregation in any 
American citv, according to population, of wealth and fashion seek- 
ing social prominence. Laid out for governmental purposes and 
with a view to defense against an enemy, it is not intended to 
become a commercial city in the sense of a trade and industrial 
centre ; for that reason, it is not gridironed with a ramification of 
intricate tracks, turnouts and sidings. Its commerce is, therefore, 
almost wholly confined to supplies for the various branches of the 
government and for the domestic consumption of the residents. 
The consequence is, that while the freight agent has a large clientele, 
in national officials and in the city merchants, he also comes in direct 
contact with the domestic life of a large part of the population. 
This makes his platforms and warehouses the receptacle of the 
greatest number of separate consignments for direct delivery at any 
one single station. The service enters the homes or business places 
of over one thousand people daily, and as that service is constantly 
changing, not less than twenty-five thousand persons receive it 
annually. Ladies and gentlemen, merchants, diplomats, cabinet offi- 
cers and government officials are frequent visitors on business to the 
station. Their character, standing, influence, and many-sided per- 
sonality makes it necessary for the agent to be a man of widely 
diversified abilities, possessed of refinement, delicacy, diplomacy, 
zeal and ambition, added to a careful training in and full knowledge 
of the business methods so necessary for the conduct of the com- 
mercial part of transportation which now prevail. The Pennsylvania 
Railroad Company in furtherance of its policy of selection has placed 
in charge of the Washington Freight Agency, Walter Worthington 
Bowie, who comes from a well-known family of Maryland. His 
father. Major Thomas F. Bowie, served on Confederate General 
Fitz Hugh Lee's staff during the Civil War. His grandfather was 
General Thomas F. Bowae, one of the incorporators of the Baltimore 
and Potomac Railroad Company. ]\Ir. Bowie was born April 22, 
1858, near Nottingham, Prince George county, Md. He attended 

171 



FREIGHT AGENCIES. 

the public schools in Xottingham, and later at the Academy at 
Upper ]\Iarlborongh, Md. He, however, owes the best part of his 
education to his mother, who was a highly educated woman. After 
leaving school he undertook farming on the ancestral plantation, and 
pursued it for several years, but being ambitious for a greater 
remuneration for his services than he could obtain in agricultural 
pursuits, he entered the employment of Blanford & Co., tobacco 
and grain merchants, in Baltimore, and remained there two years. 
On July 17, 1883, he entered the railroad service as a clerk in the 
Freight Agency, Washington, D. C, under George F. Gilbert, and 
after passing through the various grades — warehouse clerk, bill 
clerk, manifest clerk, etc., early in 1890, he was appointed Chief 
Clerk at the station, being the first and only chief clerk that the 
agency has had since its organization up to the present time, and it 
was his faithful service in that position that won him promotion to 
the agency. 

JNIr. Bowie is a man of literary tastes, and has published a very 
creditable book on the genealogy of the Bowie family. This book 
in its knov/ledge and completeness is a model of its. kind, and 
reflects great credit upon its author, who made the most careful 
researches for and compiled it in his leisure hours. 




172 




EDWARD MILLER. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



EDWARD MILLER. 



In the ^■ear 1847, when jolm Edgar Thomson assumed the 
Chief Engineei-ship of the Pennsylvania Railroad and began the 
surveys and construction of that great national highway, he had for 
his Associate Engineers, William B. Foster, Jr., and Edward Miller. 
The former was in immediate charge of the Eastern, and the latter 
the Western Division of the line. The Eastern Division extended 
from Harri^burg to the crest of the mouiitain. and the latter from 
that point to Pittsburgh. Subsequently, the line between Altoona 
and lohnstown was set apart as the Alountain Division, and came 
under the supervision of l\Ir. Aliller. The student of the railroad 
history of Pennsylvania will find indelibly impressed upon its pages 
the names of these three men, all of whom have long since passed 
away, leaving l^ehind them clear records of grandly accomplished 
work. Upon the talilets which record their achievements and those 
of other prominent Pennsylvanians in the construction of great 
public works, Mr. Miller's name stands out like a clear cut cameo. 
He was distinguished as an engineer, contractor and citizen, and 
beloved by all who knew him. He left as a sure guide to genera- 
tions of men to follow, and as a rich inheritance to his children, a 
long record of what he had accomplished during his useful and 

pure life. 

Mr. Ivliller, who was born in the city of Philadelphia, January 
6, 181 1, was graduated from the P'niversity of Pennsylvania v ith 
the Mathematical Honor when he wns but 17 years of age. He 
immediately joined the engineer corps on the Lehigh canal as rod- 
man under Chief Engineer Canvass White. In that corps were 
some of the best, and best known men in the engineering profession 
of the day, and some of whom were developing that high standard 
of ability which afterwards characterized them. Among these were 
Sylvester and Ashbel Welch, ^^^ ^lilnor Roberts, Solomon W. 
Roberts, Anthony B. Warford and George E. Hofifman. With such 
companions Mr. INliller's strong character and natural abilities ad- 
vanced, and he at once took his place in his profession as one 



175 



IN AiE^[ORIAM. 

destined to become a master. Upon the completion of the Lehigh 
Canal in 1829, Mr. Aliller entered the service of the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania as Assistant Engineer and was assigned to duty on 
the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, then being con- 
strncted under the direction of Sylvester Welch as Principal Engi- 
neer. That work being completed in December, 1830, Air. Aliller 
was transferred to the surveys on the Allegheny Portage Railroad. 
On the 30th of March, 1831, Sylvester Welch, with whom Mr. Aliller 
had been associated from the time he entered professional life, l)ecame 
Principal Engineer, with Moncure Robinson as Consulting Engineer. 
As a system of inclined planes had been adopted as a necessary 
provision for a portage over the mountains to connect the eastern 
and western divisions of the canal, the proper machinery for oper- 
ating the planes became a subject of great importance. Careful 
and intelligent investigation of the subject being necessary, ISlr. 
Miller was selected to go to Europe and examine the machinery 
used in operating the railroads there. He sailed in the spring of 
183 1, and spent the greater part of the summer and fall of that 
year in England and Scotland, where, among others, he carefully 
examined the Liverpool and Manchester and the Cromford and High 
Peak Railways, and acquired a large amount of professional and 
mechanical information. Upon his return to this countrv he was 
advanced to be Principal Assistant Engineer under l\Ir. Welch, 
and on June 28, 1832, when but a few months over his majority, 
was placed as Superintendent in charge of machinery on and for 
the Portage Railroad. In that position he designed and superin- 
tended the construction of all the machinery for that road. When 
the road was completed and opened for use, March 18, 1834. Air. 
Aliller had ten of his stationary engines in successful operation at 
the plan.es, and ten others contracted for to be used in case of acci- 
dent, or to increase the power of the road, should increased business 
demand. The machinery proved superior to any in use elsewhere, 
and its success added to the high appreciation already held of Mr. 
Miller as a civil and mechanical engineer. Before the close of 183^ 
Mr. Welch and his associates completed the "Old Portage Road." 
It was the finished product of their toil and brain, and was looked 
upon as one of the grandest achievements of the age, and as an 
evidence of the progressiveness of the Commonwealth. A writer 
of the day, in speaking of Mr. Welch, said : "He has raised a monu- 

176 



IN ?^lEMORIA^I. 
„e„t to the intelligence, enterprise and pubUc H^Ht of Pemts.-lvania 
more honorable than the temples attd pyramtd °* ^S^P'' °^ '^ 
tritnrtphal arches and columns of Rome. Mr. M.lle , .o. h 
™ al' part he had taken in producing the rest.lt. cWservedly ... c. c. 
a laro-e share of public apprec.at.on. When M. M.Uer hrs 
tvent to the Alleghenv mou.ttai... its topograph.cal features .e.e 
o. ;aratively unhnown. As a., acco...plished S-.og.st a., -e,.- 
tific en<.ineer. he ...ade personal observat.ons and exploraaons , 
fese oi.,ed to his accurate .nstrun.e.ttal work a..d consc.ent. ,u 
tudv. enabled him to becon.e an .mportant factor .,. ->;>™;S ' 
obstacles which the rugged reg.o.. ottered n. ra.lroad ; '-. - j 
In 1836 he was appointed Chief Eng.neer of the Ca..w ss,.. Ra.lroa 
:, the Morris L Essex Ca..al. On his work o.. f^--'.^^^-- 
Railroad. Solomon W. Roberts, a recogn.zed authority. sa.J .n 18,- 
The Ca;awissa Railroad has a sun ,n,t tunnel ot about t.aoo tee 
long, excavated through rock. The r.e f.-on. the ^"^i-'-;"-'; ' 
Cat^wissa to the tunnel o.. the head waters ot the L.ttle Sclnnlk U. 
fs V V "arlv t.ooo feet in about 33 miles. Mr. Miller fitted h.s hue 
o the -roun'd with verv great care, and in such a way that the road 
.as no'-.rade exceeding thirty-three feet in a mile, so as to encourage 
Lcoltlve power to the greatest possible extent. Th.s necess.ta.e 
the buikling of several very high bridges to carry the grade across 
lateral ravh.es entering the ...ain valley. The locat.on was a very 
bold one. nothh.g like it having been attempted .n the co.u.try he- 
fore. and it showed a considerable degree of o"f"='!:%f"'\ ;.;";, 
reliance on the part of the young engineer who made .t. > r. .\l.lle 
left the Catawissa road before its constrt.ction was completed and 
became Chief Engineer of the Snt.bnry and Erie Railroad, a pro- 
iected Ih.e which lav principally through a., almost trackless w.l- 
derness During the vears 1838 and 1839 he made surveys of the 
whole line, and'o.. ilarch i. 1S40. he made a full report to the 
Board describing the routes of the various surveys .n a clear and 
comprehensive manner. The construction of the road was post- 
poned bv reason of financial conditions which had brought d.stress 
to the people a..d disaster and failure to manv si.nilar enterprises, 
but when the road was built more than a quarter ot a century after- 
wards it was along the general lines designated by Mr. Mdler.^ In 
1840 Mr Aliller became, first. Consulting. a..d then. Chief Engineer 
of the Xew Yoi-k and Erie Railroad, a road designed to ex- 



177 



IN ME^IORIAM. 

tend from tlie Hudson river to Lake Erie as a competitor 
of the Erie Canal. For three years he devoted his time and 
skill in pushing forward that work, completing and opening 
for public use its first division. Work on the line being 
suspended in 1843, ^^^ accepted the Presidency of the Har- 
risburg, Portsmouth, Alt. Joy and Lancaster Railroad Company, 
a position he occupied for two years, during a part of which period 
he visited Europe in the financial interests of the Company. In 
1845, he became Chief Engineer of the Schuylkill Navigation Com- 
pany and enlarged its canal so as to double its tonnage capacity. 
In April, 1847, he was called to the Associate Engineership of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, and continued in that position until the 
spring of 1852, when he succeeded John Edgar Thomson as Chief 
Engineer. At the close of 1852 the Western Division of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad from Pittsburgh to the Conemaugh Viaduct was 
completed, and the Mountain Division between the latter point and 
Altoona was rapidly approaching completion. All of that part of 
the gigantic work had been done under the personal supervision and 
direction of j\Ir. ]\Iiller, and it stands to-day as the greatest monu- 
ment to his professional ability. He Avas deeply devoted to the 
Pennsylvania Railroad enterprise, and to the city of Philadelphia, 
as is evidenced in his annual report as Chief Engineer of the road, 
dated January 31, 1853. Having notified the Board previously of 
his intention of resigning from the service, he says in conclusion : 
"I pray that God may speed you in the noble work which now 
rapidly approaches completion, and already begins to afford some 
earnest of its future success. I feel no doubt that it will, when com- 
pleted, afford the best reward to those who have labored so long in 
its construction by j^ouring a tide of wealth in the lap of the fair 
city which we all love, 'Dear old Philadelphia.' " ^Lr. Aliller w^as 
a close friend of and confidential adviser with President Thomson, 
and in hearty accord with that distinguished officer's policv in the 
furtherance of the interests of the Pennsylvania Railroad. After 
leaving the Company's service and having been asked by the latter 
for his opinion in reference to assistance given and to be given 
Western connections, which have since become part of the Com- 
pany's system west of Pittsburgh, he replied under date of Januarv 
4, 1854: "In my report a year since to the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company, on the subject of Western extensions, I endeavored to^ 

1 78 



IN ME.MORIAM. 

show that there were required to develop the resources aud capa- 
bihties of our great Central Road, — the Ohio and Pennsylvania 
Road with its prolongations to Chicago; the Cincinnati and INIari- 
etta, to Southern Ohio and Kentucky; and a central line to Colum- 
bus, Indianapolis and St. Louis. The two first are now secured 
through the concessions granted by your Company. The Central 
Line remains, and needs and deserves your patronage. I believe 
the future history of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company will be a 
verv bright one, and that its stockholders will never regret the 
assistance they rendered to their Ohio friends." 

When ^Ir. Miller resigned from the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
the engineers of his corps presented him with a large and very 
handsome silver pitcher. It was heavy, richly chased and artisti- 
cally designed, and bore the inscription : "Presented to Edward 
Miller, Esc[uire, by the Principal and Junior Assistants of his Corps 
on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Testimonial of Respect and Esteem 
for him as their Chief Engineer and of the Remembrance they will 
ever cherish of him as a kind and considerate Gentleman. 1853." 
This pitcher was left to his daughter, Mrs. Jefferys, in Mv. ^Miller's 
will, and is prized by her as her most precious possession. 

In 1853, Mr. ]\Iiller was chosen Chief Engineer and afterwards 
elected President of the North Pennsylvania Railroad. Retiring 
from that service he was, in 1856, appointed Chief Engineer at St. 
Louis of the Pacific Railroad of Alissouri. In 1862, the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company having assumed the control of the Phila- 
delphia and Erie Railroad, Mr. [Miller, having completed his c.i- 
gagements in the West, moved to Phlladeiphia, and entered into a 
contract for the completion of the unfinished portions of that road. 
He prosecuted the work with such success that the road was com- 
pleted and in operation on the 17th of October, 1864. In the winter 
of 1865-66, he constructed under contract the Warren and Franklin 
Railroad from the Brokenstraw at Irvineton down the Allegheny 
river to Oil creek. He then, as a member of the firm of Shoemaker, 
]Miller & Co., became interested in the construction of the Eastern 
Division of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, in the Western Division of 
which road he had money invested. Mr. Miller died at his residence 
in Philadelphia, Thursday, February i, 1872, and was buried, Feb- 
ruary 5, in Woodlands Cemetery. Air. ]\Iiller was upwards of six 
feet in height, and was a man of the highest grade of moral and 



179 



IN .MEMORIAAI. 

intellectual culture; of finely cultivated literary and artistic tastes. 
He was possessed of a high sense of honor and the purest integrity. 
Solomon W. Roberts, previously quoted, whose intimate acquaint- 
ance with him extended over forty years, bore this testimony of 
him : "Although many millions of dollars have been disbursed under 
his direction, on various public works, his accumulations after many 
years of professional labor, had not been large. He was proud of 
his profession; looking upon it as the art of directing the great 
sources of power in nature to the use and benefit of man ; and he 
considered the civil engineer to be, not only the interpreter between 
the man of science and the mechanic, but also a captain of industry, 
bound in honor to set a good example to those working under him 
of all uprightness and integrity." Air. JNIiller was religiously edu- 
cated, and in 1843 connected himself with the Presbyterian Church, 
and his church relations were always of the closest character. His 
religious faith was strong, his honesty proverbial, his generosity 
large-hearted and open-handed ; his manners sympathetic, kind and 
cordial. In the language of Josiah Copley, in the "Presbyterian 
Banner,'" "He combined, as is rarely seen combined, strong native 
talent, fine scholarship and profound practical science, with the 
buoyant simplicity of boyhood, with a fresh and rich facetiousness, 
and with the faith, and hope, and charity of the Christian. The 
faith and piety of such a man, it may be well supposed, would be 
clear, bright and joyous, — and so it was." Edward Miller was an 
honor to his times as \\'ell as an honor to his country, and his life 
and life's Avork occupies an unblemished page in the history of 
Pennsylvania. The illustration of his influence upon character finds 
its best expression in the lives c^f his children, who survive him. 
His eldest son, J. Tml)rie Miller, is a distinguished civil engineer, 
at present engaged as Chief Engineer in charge of the Nicaragua 
survey under the Isthmian Canal Commission ; another son, the Rev. 
E. Rothesay ]\Iiller, is a missionary stationed at Alorioka, Japan : 
a third is the Rev. William Hamilton Aliller, D. D., pastor in charge 
of the Presbyterian Church at Bryn Mawr, Pa. ; a fourth is John 
Craig Miller, M. D., Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, etc., in 
Lincoln University, Pa. : whilst three daughters, INIrs. Charles P. B. 
Jefi^erys, of West Philadelphia, and the iMisses Matilda Campbell 
and Mary A'irginia A Idler, of Bryn ]Mawr, are very earnest in their 
devotion to good works. 

180 



'1 




JOSEPH D. POTTS. 



IN :\IE^IORIA^I. 

COLONEL JOSEPH D. POTTS. 

Any biographical history of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany would be incomplete that did not contain a sketch of Colonel 
Joseph D. Potts. Colonel Potts was a man of unusual ability ; con- 
spicuous for originality of thought, comprehensiveness of mental 
grasp, clearness of perception : precision of statement ; accuracy in 
the use of language ; thoroughness in the study of detail or in what- 
ever he undertook to perform ; wonderful self control under the most 
trying provocation ; and quiet but strong influence over his asso- 
ciates and subordinates. 

Mr. Potts was born at Springton Forge, Chester county. Pa., 
December 4, 1829, and was the son of David Potts and Rebecca 
(S])eakman) Potts. He was a descendant in the sixth generation 
of Thomas Potts, who was the pioneer ironmaster of the Schuylkill 
region. His great-great-grandfather, John Potts, was the founder 
of Pottstown, ^lontgomery county. Pa., and his grandfather, Joseph 
Potts, was the owner of Glasgow Forge and \ alley Forge, near the 
former of which ancient iron establishments, his father, David Potts, 
was born. 

The subject of this biography did not follow the occupation 
with which his family had been identified for so many years, but 
turned his attention to civil engineering. In 1852 he was appointed 
on the Engineeer Corps of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad. Subse- 
c|uent!y he became Vice-President of the Steubenville (Ohio) and 
Indiana Railroad Company, and in Februar}', 1858, he was appointed 
Superintendent of the Western or Pittsburgh Division of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad, which position he held until November, 1859. 

Upon the breaking out of the Civil War, Governor Curtin, of 
Pennsylvania, recognizing Mr. Potts' great abilities and executive 
energy, appointed him as Lieutenant-Colonel upon his active staff, 
and the Chief of the Transportation and Telegraph Department of 
the State. This position he held until December, i86r, at which 
time the Department was transferred from the State to the Federal 
Government. In 1862, while serving with the militia of the State, 
called out in consequence of Lee's invasion. Air. Potts was detailed 
by General Reynolds as Military Superintendent of the Franklin 
Railroad, extending from Chambersburg to Hagerstown, and per- 
formed prompt and valuable service in that capacitv. 

183 



IX ME^IORIAM. 

In February, 1862, he was appointed by the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company, lessee, to the very responsible position of General 
Manager of the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, from which he 
resigned in 1865. 

From 1865 to 1877 he was President of the Empire Transpor- 
tation Company, and on February 20, 1869, was elected President 
of the Erie and Western Transportation Company. 

During his Presidency of the Empire Transportation Company 
that Company became the most extended and efficient corporation 
engaged in the through freight carrying business, its traffic arrange- 
ments covering over 25,000 miles of railroads. It owned and oper- 
ated through its auxiliary companies over 500 miles of pipe line, for 
gathering the crude petroleum for shipment to the refineries in its 
bulk tank cars, it being the originator of this method of transporting 
oil. It also operated through the Erie and Western Transporta- 
tion Company, a large fleet of freight and passenger steamers on 
the Great Lakes ; together with the docks, warehouses and grain 
elevators required by this branch of its business ; a fleet of steam 
canal boats and barges operated on the Erie canal, in connection 
with the Lake Fleet. 

All of this widely extended business, embracing almost every 
known method of transportation, was created and developed under 
the direct guidance of Mr. Potts. He held the Presidency of the 
Empire Transportation Company from its inception in 1865 until 
1877, "^vhen it sold its entire equipment, plant and good will, and 
closed its existence, he continiung as its President until the final dis- 
solution and the complete and satisfactory division of its assets 
among its shareholders. 

Mr. Potts continued to hold the position of President of the 
Erie and AVestern Transportation Company until June 7, 1891. 
At this time his other investments having become so varied and 
his time and energies so taxed, he decided to resign, thus obtaining 
relief from the cares and responsibilities which the holding of this 
position entailed. The directors and stockholders accepted his res- 
ignation very reluctantly, and gave expression to their feelings of 
appreciation of their President's splendid service, and the loss which 
they sustained in his withdrawal. 

A special committee of the former body, consisting of William 
Thaw, Henry H. Houston, \Mlliam H. Barnes and George B. 

1 84 



IN MEMORIAM. 

Bonnell, to whom his letter of resignation was referred, reported 
as follows : 

"Mr. Potts' proposed retirement will sever relations which have 
existed between him and this Company since the beginning of its 
operations. Under his fostering- care the Company has so grown 
that it is to-day prosperous, substantial, strong and healthy, finan- 
cially and otherwise. So highly appreciated are his services that 
the Committee feel they are speaking", not only for the Board of 
Directors, but for the whole body of stockholders, in saying that to 
him is due in the largest measure this excellent condition of affairs ; 
that without his foresight, his unfailing powder of resource, and his 
untiring energy, no such result could have been obtained." 

While putting aside many of the cares involved in holding ex- 
ecutive positions in connection with his transportation interests, Mr. 
Potts retained a Directorship in most of these companies until the 
time of his death, and in addition to these duties he became largely 
interested in the iron and oil industries. 

In 1874 he became Managing Director of the National Storage 
Companv, and in 1879 President of the National Docks Railroad 
Companv, hath being New Jersey corporations. These positions 
he held unil 1884, when he resigned them both, though retaining a 
directorship in the companies. 

For some years prior to 1885 he \vas President of the Girard 
Point Storage Company of Philadelphia, and was Director in the 
same at the time of his death. He was also, from its inception, a 
large owner and Director in the International Navigation Company, 
which operates the American and Red Star Lines of ocean steamers, 
and also a Director of the Inman and International Lines of ocean 
steamers. 

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the International 
Navigation Company, held in Philadelphia, December 4, 1893, the 
President announced to the Board the death of Colonel Potts; 
whereupon, on motion, the following minute was adopted ; and the 
Secretary instructed to send a copy to ]\Irs. Potts and family : 

"The members of the Board have learned of the death of their 
late fellow member and associate, Joseph D. Potts, with profound 
grief. 

"The relations of ]\Ir. Potts to the affairs of this Company 
were most intimate and constant ; he belonged to its whole existence 

185 



IN ME^IORIAM. 

and history. His high abilities and sterhng character made him 
a vahied counsellor and co-worker. 

"Ripe experence in railroad, lake and ocean transportation, and 
also in manufacturing- and commercial life, made him ever helpful 
in advancing the affairs of this Company to successful results. 

"The interest of IMr. Potts in this Company was marked by a 
personal devotion amounting to an alTection for the service. 

"To his associates he was a loved friend, closely in touch with 
the daily life of each. It is here the qualities of the man were best 
shown ; earnest, thoughtful, loving, loyal to every bond, helpful in 
every need. 

"We, his fellow^ members of this Board, his close personal asso- 
ciates, will deeply feel his loss. His life was part of ours ; his 
memory is our abiding reverence.'' 

In the latter years of his life, Mr. Potts withdrew as far as pos- 
sible from the active and care-involving positions which he held, 
encountering, however, that strong opposition from friends and 
associates which is always called forth when men of great capability 
seek to lay aside their business burdens. 

His rest from the many cares and burdens of an unusually 
active business life, had been well earned by years of faithful and 
incessant toil, exercised in a number and variety of- channels seldom 
exceeded by one man, and calling for such brain vitality and energy 
as few men are able to bring to bear upon their enterprises. 

In 1879, Mr. Potts purchased a large interest in the Potts 
Brothers Iron Company, Limited, Pottstown, Pa., which at that 
time operated a rolling mill at Pottstown. In 1880 this Company 
accjuired control of the Chester Pipe and Tube Company, of Chester, 
Pa., and operated the same in conjunction with their rolling mill. 
In 1890, iVlr. Potts purchased from the Potts Brothers Iron Com- 
pany, Limited, their interest in the Chester Pipe and Tube Company, 
and held the position of President of the latter Company at the 
time of his death. 

In t88o he purchased the Isabella Furnace property in Chester 
county. Pa., formerly owned by his father. This plant he entirely 
remodeled, making it modern in all respects. 

At the time of his death, J\Ir. Potts was President of the Enter- 
prise Transt Company, a company organized for the acquiring and 
developing of oil and mineral lands. 

186 



IN ^JE^IORIAM. 

Mr. Potts was appointed and elected to many positions of 
trust and honor, among which may be mentioned the following: 
Trustee of Western Saving Fund of Philadelphia; Trustee of the 
University of Pennsylvania,, and Member of the Board of Inspectors 
of Prisons in P'hiladelphia comity. 

Notwithstanding his many duties, he took a deep interest in 
everything connected in any way with the improvement of Philadel- 
phia, freely giving his time and energies, as well as his financial 
aid, to all movements having in view such improvements. 

He was also a member of many organizations, the few here 
mentioned showing how wide a field his interests covered : American 
Philosophical Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, Acad- 
emy of Xatm-al Sciences of Philadelphia, American Institute of 
Mining Engineers, Philadelphia Board of Trade, Civil Service Re- 
form Association, Franklin Institute, Genealogical Society of Penn-* 
s_ylvania. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Forestry 
Association, Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity, Union 
League, ^Manufacturers' Club, Art Club, Rittenhouse Club and the 
Philadelphia Country Club. 

()n June 8, 1854. Mr. Potts married Mary, daughter of Dr. 
A\"illiam and AEargaret (Pollock) McCleery, of Alilton, Northum- 
berland county, P'a. 

It was while on a visit to Milton in search of health that Mr. 
Potts was stricken with paralysis, and after a brief illness, during 
which he never recovered full consciousness, died there December 
3, 1893, deeply mourned by all who knew him. 

His widow and two sons, \\'illiam ]\I. and Francis L. Potts, 
survive him. 

Colonel Potts had no superior in the exhaustive analysis of 
transportation problems. His conclusions were never those of im- 
pulse, but always represented thorough, careful study. He had a 
substantial reason for each of his business acts, and had a confidence 
in his own judgment that his careful methods in arriving at his 
conclusions fully justified. 

In the Empire Transportation Company, and its allied inter- 
ests, which he originated, and whose organization he developed, there 
was a true family feeling. Annual meetings supplemented daily in- 
tercourse by mail, and brought the members of the official family 
in close personal contact with each other and with their respected 

187 



IN ^lEMORIA^I. 

head. It is not too much to say that each man in the organization 
comniandcil the aid and support of every other one ; and that all united 
in an unbounded respect and affectionate regard for Colonel Potts, 
More than twenty }ears have passed since the Empire Transporation 
Company ceased to exist as an active corporation and became merely 
a memory, but in loving memory it lives and will continue to live so 
long as there remains a single one of the old family who stood so 
loyally together during its busy competitive life. 

Colonel Potts was an eminently patient man. Although busi- 
ness responsiljilities demanded his constant care, he unstintingly 
allowed a portion of his valuable time to be occupied and his official 
hours lengthened by people who had no claim whatever upon him, but 
wdio found comfort in coming to him for advice and counsel in their 
business and other troubles. 

While the quiet and retiring nature of Colonel Potts prevented 
his ability commanding the general and public recognition to which 
it was entitled, he was well known and his merit fully recognized 
among the ruling sjjirits in the transportation world with whom his 
business interests brought him into close and constant contact. 

His power of quick and accurate comprehension of transporta- 
tion accounts was little short of marvelous. He was able to deter- 
mine their accuracy or error almost on sight, and by an nnerring 
instinct that was not the least valuable of his varied accomplishments. 

His life v^^as an industrious and useful one, and his early death 
brought a deep personal affliction to many a heart in which there 
will live a loving regard for the "Colonel" so long as that heart con- 
tinues to beat. 

JOHN CLARK SIAIS. 

John Clark vSims, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany, died in Philadelphia, Sunday, January 6, 1901, of heart failure. 

]\Ir. Sims was the son of John Clark and Emeline Alarion Sims, 
and was born in Philadelphia, September 12th, 1845. ^^^r three 
generations back his ancestors were identified either with the military, 
scientific, religious or commercial history of Pennsylvania, and the 
city of his birth, and the traditions and honors of that ancestry re- 
ceived added lustre by his life. His elementary education was 
obtained through private tutors and in private schools. After being 
prepared in this manner, he entered the University of Pennsylvania, 

iSS 




JOHN CLARK SIMS 



IN MEMORIAM. 

and was graduated from the Department of Arts, in June, 1865. 
Upon leaving the University he registered as a law student with 
Hon. Peter ilcCall. In October, 1868, after a three years' course 
of study, he passed a creditable examination and was admitted to 
practice at the Bar of Philadelphia. Shortly after his admission 
he went abroad, devoting two years to travel and observation. On 
Januarv i, 1876, he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Companv as Assistant Secretary, which position he held until Alarch 
23, 1881. when he was promoted to the Secretaryship, upon the 
resignation of Mr. Joseph Lesley. In April, 1881, he was elected as 
Secretary of the Junction Railroad, and on ^vlarch 21, 1889, Secretary 
of the Philadelphia. Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and of 
the Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad Companies. On 
lune I St, 1898, to his duties as Secretary were added those of Su- 
perintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's Employes 
Saving Fund. 

His duties covered a wide range of subjects connected witli 
the administrative and executive functions of the Company, and 
placed him in the closest confidential relations with the officers and 
Board of Directors in all their deliberations. The responsibilities 
of the position, by reason of that fact, were very great, but not too 
great for him to carry with graceful and unwavering fidelity. The 
duties of his office, exacting though they were, did not occupy his 
exclusive time, for he found the spare hours to devote to other 
interests, and it is not surprising that he filled a number of positions 
of responsibility and trust that demanded executive talents of a high 
order. He was for nineteen years Accounting Warden of St. Paul's 
Episcopal Church at Chestimt Plill, and at the time of his death was 
a Lav Deputv to the Diocesan Convention of Pennsylvania, President 
of the Chestnut Hill Academy, Trustee of the University of Penn- 
svlvania, member of the Board of Alanagers of the University 
Hospital and the University A^terinary Hospital, and the Girard 
Trust Companv. JNIr. vSims was active in the performance of social 
functions and his hospitalities were always most delightful. He 
was an aknowledged French scholar, a good musician and a man of 
fine literarv tastes, which he held under high cultivation. Business, 
arts, science and the promotion of charitable institutions did not con- 
sume all the hours he had free from rest and social duties, for the 
athletic sports found in him a warm friend and generous advocate. 
He was a member of the International Cricket Committee that had 

191 



IN MEAIORIAM. 

charge of some of the most important matches ever played in America 
against foreigners, as well as of the Committee which sent to Eng- 
land the Philadelphia teams in 1884 and 1889. The Pennsylvania 
Railroad Athletic Association, which is now merged into the Penn- 
svlvania Railroad Department, Young Men's Christian Association, 
owed much to his energy and love of sport. He was first President 
of the organization and was largely instrumental in securing for its 
use the grounds at Fifty-second street, which form now quite an 
attractive feature of the latter Association. He was a memlser of 
the Societv of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey, and of 
the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution, the Germantown. 
Cricket, the Philadelphia, the University and the Penn Clubs. 

iMr. Sims was a splendid specimen of the physical man, and 
possessed a strong and amiable character. A man of education and 
polish, gentle, obliging, courteous and sympathetic, he was both 
alert and tactful, and ah\'a)-s held his lousiness matters und.er a proper 
reserve. Universally popular, he was nowhere more truly loved than 
among the oiiicers and employes of all grades in the service of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and none will cherish his memory 
with greater foundness. 

On the 9th of January, 1901, at a meeting of the Board of 
Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company the President 
announced the death of Mr. Sims. 

Whereupon, on motion, the following minute was adopted : 

"j\Ir. Sims was born in this city on the twelfth of September, 
1845, '^'^''^s graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the 
class of 1865, and admitted to the bar in 1868. He entered the 
service of the Company as Assistant Secretary on the first of 
January, 1876, and was elected Secretary on the 23d of JMarch, 1881. 

"He had therefore just completed his twenty-fifth year of faith- 
ful and efiicient service, when a career which seemed to promise many 
more years of useful activity was suddenly cut short, and the Com- 
pany deprived of a valued and most capable officer. 

"Singularly adapted by nature and fitted by education and ex- 
perience for the performance of the important duties entrusted to 
him, his conduct was actuated by a high sense of duty which won 
for him the entire confidence of all his associates. 

"To the members of this board, so long accustomed to his 
hearty greeting, his unfailing courtesy, and his cheerv voice, his 



192 



IN ^lEMORIA^I. 

untimely death has brought a feehng of profound sorrow and a 
deep sense of personal loss. 

"A lover of his fellows, he was in turn beloved by all sorts and 
conditions of men, and by his ever ready sympathy, his helping hand, 
and cheering- word, he ; had speciall}" endeared himself to a wide 
circle of devoted friends. 

"In making this record, the Board gives but brief and inade- 
quate expression of their affectionate regard for him during his long- 
association with the affairs of the Company." 

A writer in the "'Evening Bulletin"" paid this truthful tribute to 
Mr. Sims : — 

"Most intelligent Philadelphians ma}' in some measure under- 
stand the character and services of the late John Clark Sims, for pub- 
licly all know of his intense and careful devotion to civic interests. 
His work for the P'ennsylvania Railroad and for the University of 
Pennsylvania stands out boldly and speaks for itself, so that 'he that 
runs can read.' But it is not this side of his life that I desire to 
mention. It is John Clark Sims at home, the man as he really was, 
who is known to but a limited few of his sorrowing acquaintances. 
It is well known that the true character of all men shines forth alone 
in the home circle. As one of many who have shared fully of his 
bountiful friendship and warm sympathy and who have known him 
in his home I experience some hesitancy in invading its portals and 
speaking of the true beauty of the well ordered life which he led 
therein as well as among men of affairs. 

"But it is not overstepping the bounds of public tribute to sav 
that in John C. Sims man or woman, young or old, had but to seek 
assistance and advice to receive it up to the fullness of his power. 
Busy beyond the usual ken of man, Mr. Sims was never too bus\' 
to drop his work and lend an attentive and sympathetic ear to all 
who came to him. He was ever ready to give his time in an eff'ort 
to smooth the path of the unfortunate and uplift their hearts and 
inspire them with renewed courage. Personally I have knowledge 
of many men who owe to his kindly and ready help their present 
positions in life. To the young man, particularly. 'Mr. Sims was a 
devoted friend. He had the uncommon facultv of meeting voung 
men as one of their own years : this ability was so marked that he 
could mingle with them freely, take part in their conversation and 
sport, be, indeed, as an elder brother in their countless interests. 

"Unassuming, gentle, with a sympathy as great and tender as 

193 



IN ME^IORIAM. 

that of any woman, warm-hearted, and big in his perfect spirit of 
generosity and forgiveness, his friends will ever retain his memory 
as a thing blessed and rare. Yet he never seemed to understand the 
beauty of his life, or the rare character of his noble sympathy; in 
fact, he was -one of the few^ men who do right because it is right, who 
love the truth for truth's own sake, who love their fellows because 
it is right to love them, and who did all this as a natural duty. It 
is given but to few of us to see life in the same beautiful truthfulness 
and holy spirit as God in His infinite wisdom gave to John C. Sims. 
"And it mav be said without trespass upon the privacy of his 
home, that wdth the pra} ers of his bereaved and afflicted ones, there 
have gone forth also those of hundreds of grief-touched men, for 
•they, too, in some poor measure, knew him, and loved him, and 
honored and esteemed him, as only men can honor and esteem the 
whole souled and true."" 

The funeral took place on January 8th, and was largely attended. 
The services, wdiich were held in St. Pauks Episcopal Church, Chest- 
nut Hill, w'ere conducted by Rev. Dr. J. A. Harris, Rector of the 
parish, in accordance with the ritual of the Church, assisted by 
the vested choir of fifty voices, wdio sang the processional and re- 
cessional hymns and chanted the responses. Interment was made 
in St. Thomas" churchyard at W'hitemarsh. Alontgomerv county. 
During the committal service conducted by Dr. Harris, the Orpheus 
Club, of which IMr. Sims was a member, sang, "Hark, Hark, My 
Soul," and "Paradise, O Paradise,"' and after the benediction, "The 
Long Day Closes."" Thus has passed away a good man, wdiose every 
duty in life was w^ell done, and one wdio by his charming manners, 
thoughtful kindness, cheerfulness, humor and unvarying courtesy 
having endeared himself to all those with whom he came in contact, 
will long be held in reverent and loving remembrance. 

COLONEL EDWIX JEFFERIES. 

The death of Colonel Edwin Jefferies at his home in German- 
town. ]\iarch 28. 1899, removed from the ranks of the living a person 
who had been connected with the earlier stages of rail transportation 
development in Pennsylvania, and one whose life reflected honor 
upon himself and the commonwealth. He was a man of sterling 
worth and high Christian character. Honorable, upright and just, 
he adorned whatever station he was called upon to occupy, and being 

194 



TN ME^IORIAM. 




COL EDWIN JEFFERIES. 

thorough in business, aimable in disposition, kindly in speech and 
helpful of hand, was highly esteemed wherever known. Colonel 
Jefiferies was born in Lancaster, Pa., June 20, 181 5. He was the 
son of Thomas Jefferies, a prominent citizen of that city, grandson 
of Captain John Jefferies, and great grandson of Colonel Joseph 
Jefferies. The two latter were active and distinguished officers 
during the American Revolutionary War. Colonel Edwin 
Jefferies was educated as a Civil Engineer, and as such as- 
sisted in laying out the Lancaster water-works. On Februarv 14, 
1839, he was appointed Motive Power Clerk, or Manager, at the 
Parkesburg Shops, belonging to the State, and connected with the 
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. L^pon taking possession of 
the shops, ^Ir. Jeff'eries found a good and competent set of mechanics 
with whom he began advancing the standard of the work, and im- 
proving the machinery. With the exception of not making in the 
rough the crank axle and iron castings, all the motive power w^ork, 
except the building of a locomotive outright, was done in those 



19.S 



IN :}>ie:\ioriam. 

primitive shops, under Air. Jefferies" management. The improve- 
ment of the Gifford injector to pump hot as weU as cold water into 
the boilers ; in providing safety chains between the engine and tender, 
and the invention of the sand box are all credited to him. Mr. 
Jefiferies w^as also responsible for clearing np wrecks, which were 
frequently occurring. In writing upon that part of the work, he 
said : "Without telegraph or telephone, block signals or even head- 
lights to locomotives, it w^as at that early day of railroading a difficult 
problem to care for the distressed trains. To enable us to render 
succor, there was kept at each end of the road and at Parkesburg, 
a wrecking car provided with all necessary appliances for such emer- 
gencies. Whenever informed of trouble by a messenger on a farmer's 
horse or at night, if the 'Night Line' was an hour behind time, the 
watchman on duty should notify me of the fact I would then instruct 
him to fire up the 'Night Owl' and call out the wrecking party. 
When all was in readiness, we would start out in search of the 
derelict. Fearing a train might be met with on the same track upon 
wdiich our train was moving, I placed two men, fleet of foot, on the 
bumper of the engine to alternate in running curves with red lights. 
I never missed one of the many hazardous expeditions, and always 
took charge without any interference from any source." The fore- 
going reminiscence shows the resourcefulness of the man, a re- 
sourcefulness which raised him to the foremost rank among the 
railroad men of his day. He continued with the State until 1854, 
advancing himself and improving the service. His efforts were 
recognized, and Governor Bigler made him a member of his staff, 
Avith the rank of Colonel. In 1854 he assumed the Superintendency 
of the West Chester Railroad and made marked improvements in its 
management, putting the motive power and road-bed in better con- 
dition, and enabled that Company to withstand the assaults by un- 
friendly restrictions on the part of the State Road officials, and the 
friends of proposed competitors. \\'hen, in 1857, by reason of the 
purchase of the Public Works the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
re-organized its transportation divisicons, they tendered him the 
position of Superintendent of the Middle Division, but for reasons 
highly creditable to his unselfish character he declined the appoint- 
ment. In 1858 he formed a partnership with the late J. r)arlow 
Moorehead and began the manufacture of iron at the Merion fiu'nace 
in Conshohocken, which he conducted successfully for fourteen years, 
when he disposed of his iron interests, and retired, since which 

196 



IN ^lEMORIAM. 

time he lived the Hfe of a country gentleman, devoted to good works. 
For twenty-five years he was an active member of Christ Church, 
Germantown, a member of its Wstry, and one of its Lay Deputies 
annually to the Convention of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. He 
was a member of the Young Glen's Christian Association, and one 
of the organizers of the Germantown Relief Society. The following 
letter from one who knew him well is a just tribute to his character: 

"Emmaxukl Rectory, Holmesburg, Philadelphia, April 5, 1899. 

"CoLOXEL WAi. B. Wilson : 

"My Dear Sir : Permit me to thank you for the opportunity 
which you so kindly have offered me of paying my humble tribute 
of respect to the memory of Colonel Edwin JeiTeries. It was from a 
long accjuantance with Colonel Jefferies, as I saw him in the relations 
which he sustained to the Church that I have formed an opinion of 
his character and learned to admire and appreciate the many noble 
qualities of his head and heart. ]\ly knowledge of him began with 
my connection with Christ Chmxh, Germantown, of which he was 
the Accounting Warden for some time. In performing the duties of 
that responsible position, he always showed himself to be a man of 
the highest honor, probity and integrity of purpose, a loyal and de- 
voted Churchman, and a wise, experienced and efficient adviser and 
director in all the financial afi-'airs of the parish. Socially and per- 
sonally he was one of the most truly kind-hearted men whom it has 
ever been my good furtune to meet. In all his intercourse with 
others he was characterized by that genuine and unaffected cordiality 
which, so different from that which is assumed, always carries with 
it the conviction of its sincerity. Colonel Jeft'eries was a man whose 
heart was so overflowing with a broad charity, a pure and disinter- 
ested benevolence, a spontaneous and natural kindness, that there 
was no place in it for an miworthy motive or an ungenerous trait. 
As an active and faithful Churchman, his death removes one who will 
be deeply and sincerely missed. As a public-spirited citizen his 
community has sustained a loss which will be long and sorelv felt. 
As a man — true, loyal, upright, respected in every relationship in 
life — his memory will always hold a sacred place in the minds and 
the aft'ections of a host of friends whom he leaves behind. 
"Very sincerely vours, 

"x\rnold Harris Hord." 



197 



IN AlE-MORIA^I. 

The funeral services .conducted in Christ Church, Germantown, 
April I, by the Rev. Dr. Faulkner, were largely attended by repre- 
sentative commercial, railroad and professional people. The remains 
were interred in West Laurel Hill Cemeterv. 






19S 




PETER BOUGHNER. 



PETER BOUGHNER'S REMINISCENCES. 

COXTRIBUTED BY H. P. L. 

Peter Douo-bner was born Januar,- 23. i8.fi. at Snydertown 
Nor.b ".beriand Co™.,. Fa.. a„„ ,. no. Hving- "-P-;-;- 
same countv. He is one of the few n,en tentanu g o ^c- ° 

helped to build and OP-.-^^^^^';"^ ™ ™; ^l '::n::;ction 

«;:b:r:iiw::/xrK^>r,^"contL,edtw.b.atiot.s 
-^^^;r;^i;Sdra::;::r:^8..Tbece,ebtated..^^^ 

Girard «as one of its strong snpporte.s It was 'o '^-' . 

,,™e. .be SbantoUn ^ ^^^^^^^.^^^^ ^Z:^^^ ItlLnd 

::r;:oV:fXr::ai;:s ':;!::■; tbe rbi,adeipbia a,. Head... 

199 



PETER BOUGH NER'S RE.AIINISCENCES. 

Railroad's Mahaiioy Plane is now, then up the mountains by one 
plane and down the other side by three planes into Pottsville. 

Coal was known to exist in the Shamokin region, and to get 
this to market was the object of the promoters of the railroad. Con- 
struction began simultaneously at the eastern and western end of 
the road, but for financial reasons the work of connecting them was 
suspended and that part of the road between Shamokin and Ashland 
w-as not built. At the western end instead of tunneling Shamokin 
Hill and building into Danville a branch line was laid to Sunbury. 
Of course every one expected the main line to Danville would be 
built, and it was the chief topic of conversation. Young Boughner 
and his friend Bill Farrow, who is still living at Snydertown, thought 
they would have some fun out of this, so they painted "SHAINIOKIN 
CAR" in big letters on the sides of a store box, put it on a jumper 
sled and drove over the proposed route into Danville. They created 
much excitement, and the people flocked to see "the first car that 
came to Danville." They were given their dinners, and their horses 
were fed, and they returned home much pleased with the result of 
their trip. This was the first and last car that reached Danville over 
the line of the Danville and Pottsville Railroad. 

The railroad had its ups and downs, mostly downs. It was 
divided into parts, and had its name changed several times, until at 
last the western end became the Shamokin A^alley and Pottsville 
Railroad and was leased by the Xorthern Central Railway Company 
and is now known as its Shaniokin Division. 

Young Boughner started to work upon the grading of the road 
in 1832, and until 1835 he was sometimes engaged upon the eastern 
end and sometimes on the western end of the road, but after that 
date he became permanently fixed upon the western end where he 
remained until he resigned in 1867. 

The track consisted of a strap iron rail spiked along the inner 
edge on top of a wooden rail or stringer which w'as supported about 
every 5 feet l)y a sill or cross tie resting upon broken stone in a 
trench dug into the roadbed. The roadbed was graded 22 feet wide 
so as to accommodate two tracks with 5 feet between them. Onl}- 
one track, however, was built and that was upon the northern side of 
the roadbed. 

Mr. Boughner was emjiloyed either as a laborer or as a foreman 
upon all the different kinds of work connected with the construction 
of the road, and had gained so much experience by the time it was 



PETER BOUGHNER'S REMINISCENCES. 

put into operation between Sunbury and Paxinos in 1834 that he 
was oiven charge of the Maintenance of Way Department, and his 
jurisdiction was extended to Shamokin in 1837, when the road was 
completed to that place. 

His duties were numerous. He was Track Foreman, buper- 
visor Master Carpenter, Assistant Engineer and Contractor all at 
once, and there is no knowing what else he might have become if 
he had not resigned. His title was Supervisor. 

The transportation of anthracite coal was then, as it is now, 
the principle business of the road, but in those days it was loaded 
into canal boats at Sunburv, and when cold weather closed the 
canal the road was stopped. The cars were "four tonners." They 
looked like the mine cars now used at the collieries. The motive 
power was horses. Three or four were hitched tandem, and would 
pull six or seven cars of coal. The hauling was done by contract, 
the contractors furnishing their own horses. The railroad company 
owned no motive power until 1838, when it purchased two small 
locomotives. These locomotives had one pair of driving wheels 
and had an arrangement for using sand very much like modern 
locomotives. Thev had whistles, but they did not have cabs to 
protect the engineer and fireman, nor did they have bells. They 
burned anthracite coal, soft coal cost too much; water was pumped 
by hand for them. The first engineers were Frank Clark and 
Georo-e Shioe. The locomotives were used two years and then 
abandoned bV^ause thev were too hard on the track, and horses were 
again employed. Alaintenance of Way men still find this trouble, 
but thev do not suggest this easy method of overcoming it. 

Mr. Boughner's friend. Dr. Awl, of Sunbury, saw these loco- 
motives unloaded from the canal boats and put together at Sunbury 
and tells how the people talked about them, how they would surely 
explode or something dreadful would happen, so when it became 
known that thev were to be started everybody went to see the 
operation. The water was pumped into them, the fires were started, 
all was excitement, fear was overcome by curiosity, one by one the 
people drew nearer and nearer, and at last they surrounded the 
wonderful machine and began to examine its parts in detail when 
the engineer turned a spigot to let off some steam, and then occurred 
the second "Great Skedaddle" in the Susquehanna Valley. The 
first was caused by the Indians, the second by the engines. Some 
climbed fences and fell upon the opposite side with others on top of 



PETER BOUGHNER'S REMINISCENCES. 

them. "\Ianv were hurt, l^ut none seriously. One of the locomotives 
Avas afterwards sent to Palo Alto yard near Pottsville, where it was 
used for many years to shove cars over the scales. The other dis- 
appeared, no one seems to know where. Mr .Boughner was upon 
a train pulled l)y one of these locomotives from Sunljury to Shamokin 
in forty-five minutes, a speed of about twenty-five miles per hour. 
This was considered very fast. 

At first there were no freight or passenger stations. Platforms 
were built at the few places where regular stops were made, but 
trains would stop anywhere to let passengers get on or oft'. Baggage 
was not checked ; each person took care of his own. There were 
no tickets ; if any one paid his fare he did it on the train, but very 
few paid ; the friends and acquaintances of the employes and mana- 
gers were carried free, and, of course, everybody had a friend on the 
road under such circumstances. The trains were run very much like 
a farmer drives his wagon; if he overtakes a friend, he gives him a 
ride. The passenger car was attached to the rear of a freight train. 
At first there were no turn-outs, all trains ran towards Sunbury 
in the morning and in the opposite direction in the afternoon, and 
they all ran close together so as to help one another in case of 
accident or derailment. But after a little while this system of 
running trains could not be maintained, and two turn-outs were 
built — one at Paxinos, and the other at Snydertown, so that trains 
could pass. If by chance they met at other places, the train having 
the lightest load had to back. \\'hile the small locomotives were in 
use in 1838 and 1839, the engineer sent a man ahead around all 
curves if he thought the other train might be met. 

A taste for fast travel must have developed in the public 
while these small locomotives were in use, for there was a demand 
for greater expedition than w^as furnished by the freight service. To 
meet this demand Solomon Martz. who died about two years ago 
at his home at Reed's Station, ran a train consisting of one car called 
the "Black Hawk." exclusively for passengers and mail. 

One luxury obtained, the public wanted more. Stations were 
now demanded. By this time the railroad had some four-wheel box 
cars. The bodies of a few of these were taken and made to supply 
the want. The station at Sunbury was one of these box cars, and 
it was continued in service until 1872 when the Philadelphia and 
Erie Railroad Company built the present station at Third and 
Arch streets. 



PETER BOUGHNER-S RE^IIXISCEXCES. 

There was not much need for freight stations in those days,, 
and perhaps there would not be now if freight was handled m 
the same wav. When a car of freight was received at bhamokm 
it was allowed to stand until after working hours m the evenmg, 
when enough men would get together, lift the car oft the track, 
attach a rope to it. and pull it through the streets to the stores where 
the goods were unloaded. 

\ll the^e arrangements were done away with m 1852. in that 
vear the second track was laid, iron rails were used, and the first 
track the strap rail track, was taken tip. Horses were taken off, 
and locomotives were put on. and have continued on ever smce. 




203 



INDKX. 



A catastrophe 17 

A decaying village 23, 24 

A Faithful Surgeon 104, 105 

Agencies, Freight 106-172 

Altoona 13, 121 

An early snow plow 71, ~2 

An evening in July 16, 17 

A quaint old town 21-24 

Arrow Rock 21-24 

A primitive mail route 21-22 

Baltimore, the battle of 65-69 

Beatty, Robert S 138. 142 

Bellwood 125 

Black Dick, the life saver.... 52. 57 
Blakeslee, Dr. William R. .. 104 105 
Boughner"s, Peter, Reniinis- 

cences 199. 203 

Bowie, W. W 169, 171, 172 

Braddock's field 14 

Broad and Washington Avenue 

District 155, 156 

Buchanan, James, place of burial, 8 
Buffalo 138 

Chicago Fair 24, 25 

Chiques Rock 142 

Columbia 142, 147 

Conestoga wagon, origin of.... 73-75 

County, A. J 95. 97 

Cowlams, George D., bravery, 45. 46 
Cuyler, Tho--as De Witt 81, 83 

Davis, E. K 148, 149 

Deckert, F. S 117, 119 

Dickens, Charles, trip over the 

Alleghenies 12, 13. 75. -j^^ 

Dick's whistle 53 

Division Freight Agents.... 08, 103 

Ebensburg 120 



Elliott, A 128, 131 

First commercial telegraph line. 31-38 
First Military Telegraph office. . 39 

Flood and Charity 17, 18 

Franklin, R. L 163. 165 

Freight Agencies 106-172 

Fry, William L 135, 138 

Fuller, William W...10, 129, 131 133 
Fulton Robert, birth region of. . 8 

Germantown Junction 162, 165 

Godfrey, Lincoln 84, 86 

Grant's, Gen'l U. S., description 

of Military Telegraph.... 41, 42 
Green, Kane S 95, 97 

Halbach's, ]Mrs., Inn 9 

Hamniersley, William 153, 155 

Harrisburg 133 

Heint^elman, A. T 122, 125 

Hudson to the Ohio 7-15 

Humes, W. B 123, 125, 126 

Huntingdon 10, 11, 26, 128 

Huntingdon, scenery at. ...... . 11 

In ^Nlemoriam 175-198 

Jack's Narrows 9, 10 

Jefferies, Col. Edwin 194-198 

Johnstown 13, 17, 18, 116-119 

Juniata, scenery of 9 

Keller, John 71 

Kensington District 165 

Kinney, Charles C 156, 157, i6r 

Lights and Shadows 16-28 

Lincoln, Abraham, anecdote of. . 46 
Lincoln, Abraham, constant visi - 

tor at telegraph office 45, 46 



205 



INDEX. 

Lloyd, Abel nj. 120, 121 Snow blockade cleared 50, 51 

Lovell, W. H 126. 128 Stevens, Thaddeus, place of burial, 8 

Stewart, Edwin R 113 ,115, 116 

McCrea,, James 84, 87-90 Strouse, David 39, 40 

Mason and Slidell, capture of, 

announced at War Dep't, 46, 47 ! Tale of two cemeteries 2^, 27 

jNIeyers, Frank H 150, 151, 155 Taylor, General Zachary, occu- 

Alifflin, James, place of burial. . S pies Texas "^2 

?^Iiller, Edward 1/3 i75-i8o Telegraph Department. Penn- 

IMonitor and Merrimac 45 sylvania Railroad 39 

^Mountain scenery 11-14 Telegraph, Military, development 

Mount Union 9. 131 of 41 

INIurray. Charles S 143. 147 148 Texas, annexation of ';2 

jNIurray, Lindlay, birth region of, 8 ^ The City Village 20-22 

1 The Country Village 19, 20 

Neilson, Lewis 91 94 ' The Great White City 24, 25 

North American Hotel, Lancas- The old and the new way of 

ter a transportation "j},. 76 

< The Star Spangled Banner. ... 69, 70 
O'Brien, Richard, refusal of The Telegraph in Peace and 

brilje 41 War ; . . . 29-49 

Ogden, George D 98-100 | Transportation panels in the 

Ohio, The 14-15 : Broad Street Station 77-8o 



Paris, Compte de, commendation ' United States ^lilitaiy Telegraph 

^Military Telegraph 43- -W ' origin of 39-40 

Philadelphia and Lancaster j 

Turnpike 146 Village Life 18, 21 

Philadelphia Freight Agency.... 149 



Pier 16, New York 166 

Pittsburgh 14. 1 1 1 

Potts. Joseph D 181-188 

Progress -1, 28 



Wallace, Thomas L 133. 134. I37 

Warfare 30, 51 

Warren's, Gen. G. K., commenda- 

ion of Military Telegraph. 43 
Washington Avenue Wharf Dis- 
trict 156 

Washington. D. C 166, 171 

Washington. George, religious 

life of 58-62 



Reynolds. General John F., place 

of burial 8 

Richardson. D. R 159 161 162 

Robb, John T 166. -67 

Rock\illc, surrounding scenery. 8, 9 Wayne, Gen. Anthony, birth re- 
gion of 8 

St. Clair's, Gen. Arthur, grave. . 14 West, Benjamin, birth region of, 8 
Sappington. Dr., friend of Boone, I Wilmerding 112, 115 

Jackson and Benton 2t, ^ Wright's Ferry 145. 146 

Stager's, Gen. Anson, commenda- Wright, Robert C 98, loi, 103 

tion of ^Military Telegraph.. 43 
Sims. John Clark 188-194 Zeigler, E. E 107. in, 112 



206 



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